INSURANCE DISPUTE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 117, 20 May 1941, Page 11

INSURANCE DISPUTE

CLAIM FOR £1700

DAMAGING WORDS ALLEGED

Two life insurance companies were the parties in an action which came before Mr. Justice Ostler and a jury of twelve in the Supreme Court today. The plaintiff was the Dominion Life Assurance Office of New Zealand, Ltd. (Mr. H. F. O'Leary, K.C., and Mr. A. M. Cousins) and the defendant was the Australian Mutual Provident Society (Mr. P. B. Cooke, K.C., and Mr. W. P. Shorland). : The plaintiff company alleged that late in April, 1940, or early in. May, 1940, the defendant, by its- agents, George Vincent Anderson and Geerge lan Maxwell Porter, wrote and published to Hugh Parsons Mace, farmer, of Waitara, a statement reflecting on the plaintiff's financial position, and also. spoke and published to Mace Words damaging to the plaintiff's reputation and business. On the first cause of action £500 damages was claimed, and in respect of the second cause of action the claim was for £300 damages. It was also alleged that the statement complained of had been written and published, and, alternatively spoken and published to William Hall, farmer, of Lepperton, and that damaging words had been spoken to Hall. On each cause of action £300 damages was claimed. Finally, the plaintiff claimed £300 damages for the alleged spoken publication of damaging words to Benjamin Lewis Longstaff, farmer, of Waitara. The defence denied the publication, either written or spoken, of the statement and words complained of, and pleaded that, if thgy were used, they were not capable of any defamatory meaning. A further defence was that expressions of regret and unqualified assurances that any reflections on the plaintiff's financial soundness would be without foundation had been written to Mace Hall, and Lqngstafl, and notices to the same effect had been published by the defendant in the two leading Taranaki newspapers. A cheque for £52 10s, representing the I plaintiff's legal costs, had been sent to the plaintiff's solicitors, but had been returned. The defendant had withdrawn Porter's agency appointment, which automatically concerned Anderson also as sub-agent. The defendant therefore pleaded that not only had its actions mitigated any damages, but the plaintiff had as a result suffered no damages whatever.