COURT OF APPEAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21773, 12 October 1932, Page 9

COURT OF APPEAL

INSURANCE COMPANY’S LIABILITY COMPREHENSIVE POLICY ON CAR. (Peb United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, October 11. The Court of Appeal continued the hearing of the. case in which Marjorie L’Estrange Trickett brought a claim against the Queensland Insurance Company, Ltd., claiming £IOOO as being duo to the personal representatives of Alfred John Wiggs under a comprehensive insurance policy issued by the company over Wiggs’s car. The appellant is the daughter of Wiggs, who was killed in a car collision on November 17, 1930. The Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) heard the case in the Supreme Court, found that at the time of' the accident Wiggs was driving without lights, and on the wrong side of the road, and that the exception in the policy relied on by the insurance company applied. Mr Cornish, for the appellant, said that so far as his case was concerned it did not matter if the lights of Wigg’s car were out so long as Wiggs did not know of the fact. He submitted that the preponderance of evidence was in support of the contention that jf the lights were out immediately prior to the impact Wiggs did not know of the fact. If the court held that the exception applied when Wiggs did not know of the lights being out it would remove from the comprehensive cover offered by the insurance companies the purest form of accident. Mr Leicester, for the respondent company, said the facts of the case had been twice heard and determined by the Chief Justice. The findings of fact made by the Chief Justice were in favour of the respondent company. Those findings should not be disturbed by the appellate court unless it was absolutely satisfied that they were wrong. It had been held in England that it was against the best interests of the public that people should be permitted to drive cars on a public highway in an unsafe condition, continue to be covered by insurance policies. The court reserved its decision.