INSURANCE CLAIM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 241, 8 September 1927, Page 8

INSURANCE CLAIM.

IMPORTANT POINT DECIDED. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Sept. 7. An important point of law affecting insurance policies was laid down by Mr Justice Stringer to-day, when he gave judgment for £IOOO in favour of Roy Ernest Eastman, a building and drainage contractor, against the Eagle Star and Dominion Insuran.ee Co. ? Ltd. A workman was seriously injured by the collapse of a drain at Claudelands, Hamilton, and obtained £1267 damages and costs from his employer. Eastman held a policy for £IOOO. covering accidents to his workmen, but the defendant companies refused to pay on the ground that, according to the terms of the policy, only operations in Auckland city and suburbs were covered. Mr Justice Stringer said that where a proposed insurance was in connection with factories or shops the question as to the situation of the premises was quite appropriate and might be important m determining the nature of the risk, but the question appeared to be quite inappropriate where a proposal concerned a building and sewerage contractor’s business, which, as the parties must have known, had no local habitation, and from its very nature was always changing its scene of operations.