LOSS OF THE DUCO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14374, 19 May 1910, Page 6

LOSS OF THE DUCO.

HER SEAWORTHINESS. ALLEGATIONS NOT PROVED. • [BY TELF-CRAr-H. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Wellington-, Wednesday.' Summing up to-day in the action brought by the Wellington Harbour Ferries Company against the Royal Exchange Insurance Co., for £500 payable under a policy of insurance on the lost steamer Duco, His Honor (Mr. Justice Chapman) said the action was an ordinary one brought under a marine policy. The steamer Duco was insured with the defendants for £500 while engaged in hade between Wellington and Chatham Islands, and the jury might regard that policy as for her last voyage. Unless some defence was made out, the plaintiff company was entitled to claim on that policy. Only one defence had been set up, namely, that the vessel was unseaworthy, and that the policy would not attach to her. The onus of proof, as had been pointed out, was with the insurance company. If defendants had proved , unseaworthiness, then they had proved their defence. If there was any doubt about her ' unseaworthiness, then the jury could not accept the proof. The policy would not attach to a vessel that was unseaworthy. The most important question of fact for the jury's consideration was the deck loadilng of the coal. The jury must not consider defendants discharged by blunders of the ship's officers. It might be that an error was committed by the captain in going to sea in such weather, but the jury was to determine whether it was an improper thing to send the Duco to sea in her then condition by loading, and was that condition such a condition as to cause her to be unseaworthy in the sense that she was not really fit for the. voyage on which she started? The jury found as follows :—" That in their opinion the defendants had not shown conclusively that the Duco was unseaworthy when she lefp Wellington." His Honor said that he would therefore have to rule a verdict for the plaintiff company. It was subsequently "agreed that the amount of the verdict, with costs, etc. should be determined by the judge.