Thomson CJ:

This is an appeal from a judgment of Ismail Khan J, whereby he awarded $21,500 damages to the widow and the administratrix of the estate of one Ng Ah Thong who died on 26 March 1956, as a result of injuries which he received in consequence of being run down by a motor lorry belonging to the present appellant and driven by one Ali bin Mohamed Kassim. The plaintiff alleged that at the time of the accident the lorry was being driven negligently by Ali who was the appellant's servant and who was driving the lorry in the course of his employment. She sued Ali and the appellant as administratrix for damage to the deceased consisting in loss of expectation of life and for herself and the children of the deceased for loss of support under the Civil Law Enactment.

In the event the trial Judge found that the appellant's lorry was being driven negligently by the first defendant who was at all material times the appellant's servant or agent. He awarded the plaintiff as administratrix $3,500 for loss of expectation of life on the part of the deceased and he awarded $18,000 for loss of support on the part of herself and the children of the deceased. For some reason, which is not clear on the record, he awarded nothing for funeral expenses which must in fact have been incurred although the very modest amount of $500 was claimed in this connection.

Against so much of that decision as relates to the quantum of damages the appellant has now appealed.

The grounds of appeal are that in view of the amount awarded for loss of support the trial Judge was wrong in awarding $3,500 for loss of expectation of life and, although this is really putting the matter in the alternative, that the damages awarded for loss of support were excessive.

It is well-settled law that in cases of this sort damages recovered for loss of expectation of life must be taken into account in assessing damages for loss of support (see Davies v. Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries Ltd [1942] AC 601). It is quite clear from the trial Judge's judgment that this course was followed in the present case, but as Counsel for the appellant seemed to attach great importance to the fact that he had not said so in terms we addressed a communication to him. He has now replied that in assessing the damages for loss of support he did in fact take into account the $3,500 which he proposed to award for loss of expectation of life.

In other words the trial Judge assessed the total value of the support lost at $21,500 and the questions, therefore, we have to decide are whether he was wrong, and, if he was wrong, whether he was so wrong as to justify this Court in interfering.

It is not altogether clear what the trial Judge did and did not take into account in arriving at the figure of $21,500, although it is only fair to point out that the evidence on which any assessment of damages could be based was extremely meagre. He accepted the plaintiff's evidence that the deceased was contributing the whole of his earnings which were said to be between $160 and $200 a month towards the maintenance of his wife and six children whose ages ranged from 14 to two years, the eldest being a mentally unbalanced daughter with hardly any prospect of getting married or earning an independent living. The deceased was a rubber tapper, age about 41, and for the purpose of calculating the damages the Judge assumed that his expectation of working as distinct from natural life would be about 19 years. As was said by Lord Goddard CJ in the case of Heatley v. Steel Co. of Wales Ltd [1953] 1 All ER 489, 490 what figure a Judge can reasonably take in this connection is "entirely an arbitrary matter of speculation".

What was urged upon us in the present case was that the Judge had overlooked the consideration that in the nature of things the deceased could not have been contributing the whole of his earnings towards the maintenance of his wife and children and that at least some part of his earnin