High Court orders Kenya Power and Lighting Company to pay minor Sh2m

The High Court has ordered Kenya Power and Lighting Company to pay Sh2 million to a minor who suffered serious burns after she came into contact with a live wire.

Justice Kiarie Waweru Kiarie directed the utility power company to pay the minor who suffered permanent disability for the pain she underwent and future medical expenses.

While awarding the amount, the judge set aside Sh140,000 she had been granted by a Mbita Senior Resident Magistrate saying it was too low.

The judge noted that the minor was still undergoing counselling due to the scars on the body, was getting physiotherapy due to the impaired movement of the right elbow joint and also suffered a total of eight per cent partial incapacity.

General damages

“After considering the injuries sustained by the minor and the prognosis given by the doctor, I will set aside the award by the learned trial magistrate and substitute it with an award of Sh2,000,000 general damages,” Judge Kiarie ruled.

The Judge noted that the doctor had assessed the burns at 30 per cent and had said the recovery would take a long time.

The healing was also going to leave large disfiguring ugly hypertrophic scars and keloids and therefore would require physiotherapy and occupational therapy.

“Permanent disability was anticipated and the burns were likely to complicate later to a marjolin ulcer; an aggressive type of skin cancer,” the court had been told.

The minor sued the firm after touching live electricity wires, which had been dislodged from an electricity pole. 

A Mbita magistrate had awarded the minor Sh140,000 but he moved to the High Court seeking enhancement of the award.

In the appeal, the minor argued that the trial magistrate erred by awarding him damages that was inordinately too low in the circumstances and not commensurate with the loss suffered. 

The minor further contended that the magistrate erred in failing to take into account his submissions, which had articulated relevant issues of law thereby arriving at an erroneous decision.

“The trial magistrate misapprehended the evidence on record, in particular the permanent disability as assessed and failed to properly and exhaustively evaluate the evidence or based on no evidence,” the minor argued. 

According to the minor, the magistrate erred in law and fact by disregarding future medical expenses.