JUDGE SURPRISED

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 74, 24 September 1927, Page 18

JUDGE SURPRISED

CLAIM FOR INSURANCE

"INNUENDO UNDESIRABLE"

(Special' to "The Evening Post") AUCKLAND, This Day.' Judgment was given against the North British ana Mercantile Insurance Company for £275 by Mr. Justice Stringer in. the Supreme Court m a claim' against the company by Evelyn Mulliner for £400 insurance on a mo-tor-car which had been burnt. For the plaintiff, Mr. Singer said that the'car was purchased from Auckland agents in February, 1925, for £465, its first owner spending £50 or £60 in additions and embellishments. In July, 1926, it was bought by J. L. Scott, who took out a policy with defendant company. In the following September Mr. Scott sold the car to the plaintiff, who lived in the same house with Mr. and Mrs. Scott, and a transfer of the insurance policy was registered with the insurance company in the name of Miss Mulliner. . Last May Mr. and Mrs. Scott and plaintiff went for a tour in the car. While the plaintiff and Mr. Scott were going over Mount Messenger the clutch of the car began to slip. Mr.-Scott got out to repair it, and the car went over a slight bank, caught fire, and was burned. The insurance company refused to pay on the ground of breaches of conditions of the policy. The car had been carefully overhauled by two mechanics just before the journey. Mr. Mndlay (for the defendant) asked for a nonsuit on the ground that there were at least two mis-statements of fact in the insurance proposal, which voided the policy. Mr. Scott had stated in the proposal that he had never had a previous accident with a car, but ho now said he had had an accident with a sedan. His Honour said that if that sort of objection was to be raised, it was making motor-car insurance a trap. He was surprised ■ that such objection should be taken. llr. Findlay said the principal objection was that the price paid was represented as £450. . -

His Honour declined to grant a nonsuit, saying the question regarding previous accidents referred specifically to accidents followed by a claim on an insurance company. After hearing evidence his Honour said that in his opinion £275 was a fair and reasonable estimate of the value of the car at the time of its destruction, and he gave judgment for £275 with costs'as per scale. As there was at least one point about which he had some doubt, he would give his' opinion in writing with a view to a case being stated for appeal. "I should like to give the Court of Appeal an opportunity of expressing an opinion as to the morality of these contracts of insurance, with these conditions and clauses, winch, to my mind, present a series of traps to unwary insures," he said. An appeal might be the means of bringing about legislation, which he thought very desirable, in order that people might know where they were when they entered upon these' insurance contracts. He j would throw the onus upon the defendant company if it chose- to take the matter to the higher Court. Commenting on another aspect of the cases, his Honour said insurance companies were no doubt often swindled by the insured, but it was, to say the least of it, inadvisable to introduce that element in a case unless the company had such specific knowledge aa would justify it in bringing a definite charge. Innuendo in theso matters was very undesirable.