Whether insurance can be claimed by the mother of an employee who has died during the course of his employment with his father.

Case/Question decided

Mr. X, son of Mr. Y, has died in an accident. Then Ms. Z, mother of Mr. X  made a claim against the insurance company stating that Mr. X was employed as driver by Mr. Y and Mr. X has died during the course of the said employment.

The question that has been raised here is that whether insurance claim is payable in the  instant case where the son is employed by the father and the son  died during the course of such employment.

Relevant Act

Employee compensation Act, 1923

Decided Case law

Lata Ramchandra Ubale Vs. Ramchandra Shankar Ubale & others (others include Insurance company)

Case Decided by

Ms. Mridula Bhatkar, J.

Clarification

It has been decided that although the law recognizes employer, employee relationship among the family members, the fact of the employment shall be established based on the facts and circumstances of each case.

In the above case the insurance company was successful in proving that the employer and employee relationship did not exist between Mr. X and Mr. Y by establishing the following facts:

Mr. X (driver)  used to carry vegetables of Mr. Y (father) from one place to another for the purpose of sale, however Mr. X was not returning any amount to Mr. Y, which was also acknowledged by Mr. Y, henceforth proving that there was no relationship of employment between both the persons.

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