£800,000 LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8828, 20 March 1909, Page 7

£800,000 LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT.

ROMANCE OF JAMAICA EARTH-

QUAKE,

The insurance litigation which followed upon the Jamaica earthquake in 1907 has now been settled. The settlement was signed on 21st December. All the companies involved have, after the decisions of the courts in London and Jamaica, accepted their liability for the damage done by the fires which accompanied the earthquake. About 800' policy-holders made claims, and twentythree insurance companies were involved. A fire office committee, representing all the companies, was established to deal W'ith the matter, and that committee, sitting in London, has agreed to settle the claims. The total amount to be paid by the companies is about £600.000, together with £75,000 costs. Taking into account the costs incurred* by the companies themselves, the cost of the settlement and the litigation has been about £800,000. The original claims amounted to just over £700.000. The companies involved, which included the most important concerns in Great Britain, were: — Aachen and Munich, Alliance (including Imperial), Atlas (including Manchester), Commercial Union, Guardian, Liverpool and London and Globe, London Assurance, London and Lancashire, National of Ireland, Netherlands, North British and Mercantile, Northern, Norwich Union, Palatine, Phoenix, Prussian National, lioyal (including Queen's and Lancashire), Royal Exchange, Scottish Union and National, State. Sun (including Patriotic), Western of Canada, Yorkshire (including Lion).

ROMANCE OF THE TEMPLE. From beginning to end the litigation has been one of the modern romances of the Temple. It comprised, among other strange thing.s a search for a sunken Spanish galleon, in the interests of a syndicate composed of the lawyers engaged on one side of the case. After the earthquake and the fires Kingston was a black ruin. The situation seemed helpless. Most of the premises in the business part of the town were shattered, and the insurance companies denied liability for rebuilding, on the ground that the fires were the consequence of the earthquake, and were therefore outside the risk they had undertaken to cover. Counsel were briefed in London to fight a test action on behalf of the policy-holders. Mr E G. Hemmerde (now K.C.) and Mr Maurice B. Blake went to Jamaica, and realised at once that the interests of the policy-holders were identical, and that the only chance was a combined fight. Mr Hemmerde summoned a general meeting, at which it was decided to follow his advice.

Two actions were fought -in Jamaica. To take part in them the English barristers had to be formally admitted to the colonial Bar, and they will appear in the Jamaica Law List as long as they live.

The short point of tho litigation was this: If the fires were the natural consequence of the earthquake, the companies were admittedly not liable; but the plaintiffs alleged that the two events had no connection with each other, that one of tho fires broke out before tho earthquake was felt, and that there would have boon a fire just the same if no earthquake had occurred.

The actions culminated in an appeal to the Privy Council, when it, was finally dccidcd that the companies had not made out tb.eir case that the earthquake was to blame. t SEARCH FOR TREASURE. It was during the consultations in Jamaica that the treasure hunt was suggested. The local fishermen reported that a treasure ship was sunk on a roof some 140 miles south of Jamaica. Whether it was a Spanish galleon or one of the vessels of that lusty old pirate, Sir Henry Morgan—who was knighted and made Governor of Jamaica for his services in sweeping the Spanish main—thov did not know. Five months ago Mr Maurice Blake (who, oddly enough, is the son of another former Governor of Jamaica, Sir Henry Blake), went out to the reef in a 30-ton schooner. The wreck was in ten feet of water. An expert swimmer, he did the diving himself, assisted by two members of the crew, without apparatus of any kind. He found twelve cannon and a great anchor, but all the timbers of the ship had vanished. Six or seven hours a day were spent in diving The method employed was to explode charges of dynamite and then dive from the canoes and fill buckets with broken coral and sand, which were drawn up and searched in the canoes. In this way a certain amount of treasure was recovered* in coral-encrusted "pieces of eight" —small gold coins about the size of a half-sovereign. A hurricane sent the party racing back for Jamaica, but another expedition will probably start soon. Sharks and hurricanes arc the difficulty. One monster, forty feet long, well known to the fishermen as the terror of those parts, was seen. Another, fourteen feet long, was hooked on a light fishing line and shot by Mr Blake.