COURT OF APPEAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 280, 26 November 1932, Page 7

COURT OF APPEAL

THE TRICKETT CASE. JUDGMENT FOR DEFENDANTS. [ T’er Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 25. In the Court of Appeal case, Trickett versus the Queensland Insurance Co., the Court to-day delivered ite reserved judgment in favour of the respondent insurance company. In the joint judgment Mr. Justice McGregor and Mr. Justice Kennedy said that they were only satisfied that the judgment of the Chief Justice in the Court below was wrong on facts. In their opinion it was not necessary for the company to establish that deceased Wiggs knew of the damaged state of his car, but even assuming that knowledge was necessary, then from the evidence it appeared to them that he must have known that his car was being driven without lights and was consequently in a damaged or unsafe condition. Mr. Justice Herdman dissented from the. other member of the Court, bolding that it was incumbent on the company to show that Wiggs was aware of the unsafe condition of the car and the evidence did not establish that knowledge. Costs on the highest scale wore allowed to the company. An involved collision which took place about midnight on November 17, 1930, on the Hutt Road between Ngahauranga and Kaiwarra. between a car driven by Alfred John Wiggs, who was killed in the collision, and other owned by Dr. Christina Findlater, led to extensive litigation. Marjorie Lest range Trickett, daugh ter of deceased Wiggs, brought a claim against the Queensland Insurance Co., Ltd., claiming £lOOO as being due to Wiggs’ personal representatives under a comprehensive insurance policy issued by the company over Wiggs’ car. The Company disclaimed liability, contending that Wiggs’ car at the time of the accident was being driven without lights, and that a certain condition in the policy, providing that if a car was being driven in a damaged or unsafe condition, no liability should attach to the company, should be applied. Mr. Justice Myers, before whom the action was tried, found that at rhe time of the accident Wiggs was driving with out lights and o n the wrong side of the road, and that the exception in the policy relied on by the insurance com pany applied.