DECISION REVERSED ON APPEAL

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22389, 30 April 1938, Page 21

DECISION REVERSED ON APPEAL

WOMAN'S DEATH FROM TETANUS

<PBB*S ASSOCIATION TKLEGK4XJ

WELLINGTON, April 29.

The Court of Appeal delivered judgment in the case of the Victoria Insurance Company, Ltd., v. Ernest Leonard, Harrison-Wilkie. The respondent claimedfrom the appellant company in the Supreme Court at Christchurch last year, as administrator of his lat ewife's estate, the sum of £IOOO claimed to be payable under a private motor vehicle insurance policy. . . . . Mrs Harrison-Wilkie received injuries in May, 1937, on getting out of a car driven by the respondent and about three weeks later she was found to have developed tetanus, from which. she died. ", Mr Justice Northcroft, before whom the action was heard, held that on his interpretation of the policy, the claim was well founded and entered judgment in the respondent's favour. Judgments were delivered this morning by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), Mr Justice Kennedy, and Mr Justice Callan; holding that the judgment of the Court below could not be supported in law and was incorrect. Mr Justice Blair, in a separate judgment, upheld the decision appealed from.

The order of the Court was that the appeal be allowed, with costs on the highest scale as in a case from-a distance, and with the same costs to the > appellant company as had been allowed to the respondent in the Supreme Court together with disbursements.