Crash victim’s widow gets S$4.3mil

Amount believed to be largest payout for accident dependency claim in S’pore

SINGAPORE: An Australian widow whose cyclist husband died here after being hit by a taxi received about S$4.3mil (RM12.7mil) last month – believed to be the largest reported payout for an accident dependency claim here.

The High Court-approved payout, which was mutually agreed by the parties involved, capped a settlement reached some four years after the tragedy and a year after insurers for the taxi driver accepted 100% liability.

In a previously reported dependency claim case in 2016 involving fatal personal injury, the affected family was awarded S$2.6mil (RM7.7mil).

Benjamin Paul Lawrance, 32, died on the spot from multiple injuries when a taxi from the opposite direction crashed into him as he was cycling along Mandai Road just after 5.30am on July 14, 2014.

Lawrance, an expatriate working here as a regional manager of an offshore drilling firm, was cycling with others, who witnessed the tragedy.

It emerged that cabbie Mohammad Adzhar Ahmad had momentarily fallen asleep when his taxi cut to the right, to the other side of a continuous white dividing line on Mandai Road and hit Lawrance.

Adzhar, 39, was convicted in August 2015 in a district court, jailed for three months and banned from driving for seven years after admitting to causing death by a rash act.

Last year, the victim’s widow, Sionnan Lawrance, 36, sued the driver in the High Court for negligence and sought damages for herself and their three-year-old son.

In claim documents filed, she sought compensation as both the housewife and their son had been dependent on Lawrance for support and maintenance.

The regional manager was being paid an expatriate’s package.

As they were dependent on him for support, his death meant they lost their means of support and at issue was the projected sum he could have earned over a lifetime to provide for them, given his promising career and future earnings abroad.

In the end, the court hearings were vacated as the quantum was settled through private negotiations between lawyers from Tan Kok Quan Partnership for the taxi driver’s insurers and Grace Law LLC for the widow.

The sum comprised S$2.1mil (RM6.2mil) in loss of dependency for the widow and S$1.05mil (RM3.1mil) in loss of dependency for the child, and another S$1.185mil (RM3.5mil) in special damages, among other things.

The settlement sum was approved by the High Court as a requirement since a child was involved as a party in the suit. — The Straits Times/Asia News Network