INSURANCE ON CAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20641, 13 August 1930, Page 15

INSURANCE ON CAR.

SALE ON TIME-PAYMENT. VENDOR'S CLAIM SUCCEEDS. [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON, Tuesday. Judgment for tho plaintiff for the full amount claimed was given by Mr. E. Page, S.M., m the Magistrate's Court today, in the case in which Kenneth Joseph Wilson, a bank clerk, claimed from the Mercantile and General Insurance Company, Limited, £3O 7s 3d, being tho amount of damages done to his motor-car through a collision. Plaintiff owned a motor-car, and on July 3, 1929, took out an insurance policy with the defendant company for £l5O, and paid the premiums up to July 3, 1930. In November, 1929, he arranged to sell the car on time payments, and an agreement for sale and purcliaso was entered into between him and the purchaser. Possession of tho car was given to the purchaser in March, 1930. While the car was being driven by a friend of the purchaser it collided with another vehicle, and damago amounting to £3O 7s 3d was done to it. The insurance policy contained among its "general exceptions" a provision that no liability should attach to the company "if the interest of the assured in tho said motor vehicle has passed to any other person," and tho question before the Court was whethor the plaintiff's interest in the car could be said to have passed to the purchaser. "It is argued by the defendant company," said the magistrate, "that the effect of the agreement is that the property in, or ownership of, tho car has passed to tho purchaser, and that the policy is thereforo void." Tho magistrate said he was unable to adopt that view as the agreement expressly provided that tho property was not to pass until the wholo of tho purchase money had been paid. Security for appeal was fixed at the amount of the claim, and £7