G.S. PATEL, J.

1. The short question for consideration in this motor accident First Appeal is this: where the victim is shown to be self-employed, what is the appropriate method or approach in assessing his income for calculating the loss of dependency? For a salaried person, the question presents no difficulty at all. Similarly, where there is a regular income received from a defined source with periodic increments, there again there should be no difficulty at all. But a self-employed person may have a widely variable income from year to year. This may be attributable to a variety of reasons: market fluctuation if he is in business, the ebb and flow of consultancy work if he is otherwise self-employed, a sudden dip in income because of illness or temporary incapacity of some kind, and so on. At the most general level, it is common experience to find among self-employed professionals years in which their income is reasonable or moderate, followed by a sudden increase, only to be followed in the next year by a decline that may be of a level higher than the first year but less than the second. This may particularly happen in certain professions that demand personalized or in