Ask the Lawyer 256

29/04/2020

HOW DOES MOTOR THIRD PARTY INSURANCE BENEFIT ME?

Hello Lawyer,

A couple of months ago, I accidentally knocked a boda-boda guy with his passenger and I had to part with about UGX. 1.4 million for their medical bills and repair costs for the motorbike. I was recently telling a colleague about the incident and he told me that I should have just notified the insurance company from which I bought the Motor Third Party Insurance and it would have compensated the victims but he didn’t seem to have all the details on how exactly it works. I always pay my Motor Third Party Insurance just to avoid being bothered by traffic police officers. Help me understand how Motor Third Party Insurance works and how I can benefit from it.

Conrad.

Hello Conrad,

The reality is that most vehicle owners have not benefited from the Motor Third Party Insurance they pay for annually mostly because they are not aware of their entitlement as insurance policy holders. The majority of vehicle owners purchase Third Party Motor Insurance just to avoid being arrested or fined by traffic police officers. In case of an accident, they settle the injured third parties from their pockets and never bother to make a claim for reimbursement from their insurers.

What is Motor Third Party Insurance?
Motor Third Party Insurance is a mandatory motor insurance cover which is required for all vehicles and motorcycles except for government owned vehicles. It was designed to protect third parties who may suffer bodily injury or death as a result of an accident. It however does not cover the owner of the vehicle, his/her driver, employees or immediate family members. It also does not cover damage to the property/the vehicle or any other form of property damage.

It is called Third Party Motor Insurance because it involves three parties. The 1st party is the owner of the vehicle (policy holder), the 2nd party is the insurance company and the 3rd party is any person who may be adversely affected by the usage of the motor vehicle.

Who is to pay in case of an accident?
If a vehicle having a valid motor third party insurance gets involved in an accident, the duty to pay the victims of the accident is on the insurance company, not the owner or driver of the vehicle except where the accident is as a result of the driver’s negligence. The owner/driver will only be required to top-up if the amount exceeds the maximum amount payable by the insurance company.

How much is paid in compensation?
The maximum liability for Motor Third Party Insurance is one million shillings per person and ten million shillings in aggregate per accident. This means that if a person is injured or dies as a result of an accident, the insurance company shall pay up to one million shillings in compensation to the victim or their family and a maximum of ten million shillings if there are many victims.

What happens if you don’t pay Motor Third Party Insurance?
It is an offence to use a vehicle on the road without paying Motor Third Party Insurance. If you are arrested or convicted, you may be required to pay a fine not exceeding one hundred thousand shillings or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding two years or both.

How to make a claim.
The moment the vehicle gets involved in an accident, report the incident to police and the insurance company so that investigations into the accident and the victims can commence. Thereafter the requisite paperwork shall be done and compensation will be made accordingly within a period of not more than 60 days except where there is a dispute. All costs incurred in obtaining the police accident report are reimbursed by the insurance company as part of the aggregate compensation.

If you have any other questions about this, or if you need legal advice on any other matter, contact us on: Email: [email protected]; Tel: +256 200 900604/ +256 777 752980 or send us a message through our inbox.

20/04/2020

Ask the Lawyer 256 updated their phone number.

Ask the Lawyer 256 updated their phone number.

18/04/2020

THE VASECTOMY DIDN’T WORK, NOW MY WIFE IS PREGNANT. I WANT THE HOSPITAL TO PAY FOR THE CHILD'S UPBRINGING. PLEASE ADVISE.

Hello lawyer,

Gerald here. This is my situation. My wife and I always planned to have 4 kids. After our 4th, she got on serious family planning but as luck or fate would have it, she conceived and we welcomed our 5th child. I wasn’t so thrilled about it initially especially because of the responsibility that comes with every child but I gradually came to terms with the situation. I could not let this happen again so after long deliberation and extensive research, I decided to get a vasectomy. My wife wasn’t comfortable with the idea at first but after much persuasion, she eventually agreed. Once I was sure that she was on board, we headed to one of the most reputable hospitals in reproductive health and had them tubes snipped. It was a quick procedure and I was out of there in under an hour.

Now here’s the real situation: Recently, my wife started having her usual pregnancy symptoms. At first I told her to ignore them because there was just no possibility for that. It definitely had to be something else. There was no way we were having another child. 6 kids?? No way!! She insisted on having a test done and alas, she confirmed she was pregnant. Clearly there’s only two ways this could have happened; either my wife cheated and that’s totally out of the question or the procedure wasn’t professionally done and I am certain that this is the case. Now we have to prepare to take care of another child we absolutely had no plans for yet we had done our best to eliminate the possibility. It’s only fair that the hospital pays for their carelessness by catering for the upbringing of the child especially the education. Can my claim stand?

Hello Gerald,

Your case is categorized as one of wrongful birth whereby the parents of a child may be entitled to compensation if it can be proved that the birth of that child was unintended, and brought about due to a health provider’s negligence for instance where a baby is conceived/born despite the parents having acted and taken preventative measures to avoid pregnancy usually through a vasectomy or sterilisation. The success of a claim for wrongful birth will largely depend on the reason for the failure of the vasectomy which is always one of these three reasons;

S*x too soon. It is advisable to abstain from unprotected s*x for at least 3 months after the procedure because it takes about that time for semen to be s***m-free after a vasectomy. During this time, a patient is advised to use alternative methods of contraception until they have a semen sample tested and it shows a zero s***m count. Ignoring medical advice could lead to pregnancy. If this is found to be the cause, then you would have no claim against the hospital. However, where the doctor never informed you of this or the need to do the follow-up test, they the hospital may be liable.

Tubes (vas deferens) reconnect. Although rare, the tubes may in some cases reattach on their own through no fault of the doctor or your own.

Surgical error. Where the doctor misses the vas deferens during the procedure. Where the vasectomy fails due to medical or surgical negligence, you can have a claim.

Upon a successful claim, your wife will be entitled to compensation for the pains associated with pregnancy and childbirth as well as compensation for the accompanying extra medical expenses, loss of earnings and layette. However, general maintenance costs for the child’s upbringing cannot be recovered except if the child is born with a disability. In such a case compensation may be given to cover the extra costs of raising a disabled child.

17/04/2020

AM I ENTITLED TO A SHARE OF MY HUSBAND’S PROPERTY EVEN IF I DIDN'T CONTRIBUTE TO IT?

Hello Lawyer,
I’m Anne. I have been married to my husband for 11 years and we have 3 children. I am an accountant by profession and he is a businessman. In the second year of our marriage after the birth of our first son, my husband asked me to be a stay-at-home-mom in order to effectively take care of the baby while he works. He promised to provide all my needs and I agreed so I have been a stay-at-home-mom since then. Two years later, he bought a plot of land and built the house in which we live now but I did not contribute to it since I had no income. Over the years, he has bought other plots of land on which he has constructed rental houses and he also has some businesses including a hardware shop, electronics shop, mobile money outlets and a farm but I did not financially contribute to any of them.

All was well with us until mid-2016 when my husband started changing. He started spending less time at home claiming that he was busy. He also became less interested in the children to the extent that I had to beg him to pay school fees for them yet he clearly has the money. I later confirmed that he was having an affair with another woman with whom he had even fathered a child. He had also bought her a house and that is where he was spending most of his time. When I confronted him about it, he remorselessly said that he had no plans of letting go of the other woman and that I should be willing to co-exist with her or else things won’t go so well for me. I told him I couldn’t handle that and since then he has never come back home. Reaching him is a challenge so I have to go through his mother to get any kind of help from him but it’s hardly enough for us to survive. I had started making my peace with the situation until recently when property brokers came to inspect the house and they said he had sent them.

Everything has fallen apart for me all over again. I am afraid that he might chase us out of the house, sell it off and get rid of us once and for all. I am so confused and everything is a mess for me right now. I don’t know what to do. I have been advised to divorce him; get something from the divorce and just start my life afresh but I am afraid of my children’s welfare as well as my own. Where shall we live? How will they go to school? What will they eat? I have not held a job in ten years and I don’t even know where to start from. I don’t even have the capital to start anything of my own. My whole life was dependent on him. It’s just so overwhelming; I feel so helpless. Please advise me on what my fate as well as my children’s fate is in case of a divorce. Am I entitled to anything of his if I did not contribute to it?

Dear Anne,
The contribution to the acquisition of property in a marriage does not necessarily have to be monetary. The law recognises not only a spouse’s direct or indirect monetary contribution but also a spouse’s non-monetary contributions. The wife’s non-monetary contribution to the matrimonial property has been considered by the courts of law to include activities such as preparation of food, purchase of children’s clothing, getting children ready for school and generally enhancing the welfare of the family. These activities amount to a substantial indirect contribution to the family income and assets which entitles her to an equal share in the couple’s matrimonial property because such services make the husband stable and enhance his ability to concentrate on the accumulation of wealth. You can be guided by this categorization;
(i) Property acquired before marriage. This shall be held solely by the spouse who acquired it
(ii) Matrimonial property. That is the property which the couple refers to as their matrimonial home, where they live and stay, bring up children and sometimes earn a living by working on the land on which the home is. This shall normally be shared equally between the couple.
(iii) Property acquired during marriage solely by one of the spouses shall be held by the spouse who acquired it.
(iv) Property acquired during marriage by both spouses or where one of them made a contribution shall be shared according to each spouse’s contribution.

About your welfare, the law recognizes that in many marriages, the couples arrange their affairs in a way which greatly advantages the husband in terms of his earning capacity and leaves the wife severely handicapped in hers. This is usually so where the husband goes to work but the wife gives up her career to take care of the children and the home and by doing so, she loses the opportunity to acquire and develop her own money-earning qualifications and skills. In such cases, the law will normally look kindly upon a wife whose choices during the marriage have generated hard future needs for her and an award of alimony (spousal support) may be made. The purpose of alimony is not to reward one party and punish the other but rather to ensure that the reasonable needs of the wife who is unable to support herself through appropriate employment after the divorce are met. The amount payable for alimony is decided by the court based on the facts of the case and it varies from case to case. In may be paid in a lump sum or periodically.

The welfare of the children is also paramount in cases of divorce and the courts strive to ensure that the best interests of the children are taken into consideration. The courts accordingly make orders in regard to the custody and maintenance (education, food, shelter and medical care) of the children. Since you have been fully dependent on your husband, the courts would be more inclined to charge the husband with the maintenance of the children until they are grown. As to their custody, the courts are normally hesitant to alter the living environment of minor children unless the circumstances require the alteration. Since the children have been staying with you, the courts would be more inclined to grant you primary custody of the children with your husband having reasonable access to them unless circumstances exist to restrict his access to them.

16/04/2020

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