A third party risk policy covers liabilities

The term third party has not been defined in the Motor Vehicles Act or in the rules.“Third party risks’ Road Traffic act 1930 connotes that the insurer is one party to the contract, that the policy holder is another party, and that claims made by others in respect of the negligent use of the car, may be naturally described as claim by third party. In the definition of the term third party given in section 93 if the Motor Vehicle Act 1939 corresponding to section 145 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, ‘third party’ is defined to include the Government. “ A third party risk policy covers liabilities for death or injury caused to a third person or damage caused to a property of a third party arising out the use of a motor vehicle. Third party Policy is, therefore, wider than the Act policy; It covers liability arising from injury to person or property of a third party or from death of a third party arising out of the use of a motor vehicle insured. Act policy means an insurance policy which is issued by an insurer and obtained by the assured under a mandatory provision of the Act.” Special Provision as to Compensation in case of hit and run motor accident: The special provision contained in sec. 161 to 163 of the act of Motor Vehicles. The Act providing for granting relief to victims or the legal representatives of the victims of “hit and run” motor vehicles accident cases is another novel effort on the part of the Government to remedy the situation created by the modern society which has been responsible for introducing so many facts moving vehicles on Roads. Liability without fault in certain cases: 

• Section 140 (i) of the Motor Vehicles Act follow as “where death or permanent disablement of any person has resulted from an accident arising out of the use of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle, the owner of the vehicle shall or as the case may be, the owner of the vehicles shall jointly and severally, be liable to pay compensation in respect of such death or disablement in accordance with the provision of this section.”
• Section 140(2) says that the amount of compensation which shall be payable under sub section (1) in respect of the death of any person shall be a fixed sum of fifty thousand and the amount of compensation payable under that section  in respect of the permanent disablement of any person shall be fixed sum of twenty thousand rupees.
•  Section 140 (3) says that in any claim of compensation under sub section (1) of the section 140 the claimant shall not be required to plead and establish that the death or permanent disablement in respect of which he claim has been made was due to any wrongful act. Neglect or default of the owner of the vehicle or vehicles concerned or of any other person.

Asbestos class action certification

The legal system has developed for resolving mass torts is the class action settlement. In a class action, judge certifies a class consisting of all plaintiffs having a particular type of claim against one or more defendants that produced a harmful product. If the class action goes to trial, the judge or jury makes a single decision for each defendant that is, all plaintiffs either win or lose against each defendant. But most class actions are resolved by settlements rather than trials, and class actions frequently are certified only after a settlement is reached. As in a bankruptcy, class action settlements often involve setting up a compensation trust to pay present and future tort claims, using assets provided by the defendant and its insurers. Class action settlements can be used to resolve mass torts that involve multiple defendants. If multiple defendants produced a single dangerous product and individual plaintiffs cannot identify which defendant’s product harmed them, a class action settlement can set up a single compensation trust to pay all plaintiffs’ claims, with defendants and insurers agreeing on a formula for dividing the cost. Unlike bankruptcy filings by individual defendants, a class action settlement of this type prevents the mass tort from spreading.

The Supreme Court overturned another asbestos class action certification that involved only a single large defendant. After the two decisions, defendants concluded that no class action settlement of asbestos claims would succeed. Economists have strongly criticized the federal rules that determine when a class action can be certified, arguing that judges certify class actions too frequently. Their concern is that class actions are often certified even when plaintiffs’ claims are very weak and they would lose in a trial. However, once a class is certified, defendants nearly always settle, since going to trial is too risky when losing could force the firm into bankruptcy. But economists have overlooked a benefit of certifying class actions in the mass tort context, which is that they can be used to resolve multi defendant mass torts collectively and can therefore stop the spread of mass torts to new defendants. In the asbestos context, even if some U.S. Supreme Court justices changed their minds and the Court allowed a large class action of all asbestos claimants to be certified, it would probably be impossible for the parties to agree on a settlement. Plaintiffs and defendants would have to agree on how much is needed to compensate all present and future claimants and defendants and insurers would have to agree on a formula for dividing the cost. The agreement concerning the cost allocation would have to be voluntary, since class action settlements have no mechanism for forcing dissenting defendants to agree.