MISSING BAKER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 221, 17 September 1940, Page 8

MISSING BAKER.

INSURANCE PROBLEM. COURT RESERVES DECISION. WELLINGTON, this day. The hearing of the case concerning the disappearance of William Alfred Joseph Sinter Montgomery, a baker, at Xgatea, near Thames, on February 3, 1930, and the question of the payment of his life insurance was continued in the Appeal Court to-day.

The Public Trustee, as holder of a will dated 1925, applied in June last to the Supreme Court for an order granting leave to swear death of the missing person so that probate eould be granted and the estate administered. This application was opjtosed by the Australian Mutual Provident Society, the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance and the State Fire and Accident Office, in which Montgomery's life was insured for a total of £3000. Mr. Justice Johnston, by wliom the application was heard, gave leave to swear death, at the same time pointing out that the insurance companies could defend the proceedings on policy on the ground that there was no evidence of death. The Appeal Court is hearing an appeal from this, decision. Mr. Byrne, of the Public Trust, in arguing the case for the respondent, contended that the law as to the effect of the grant of probate made pursuant to an order giving leave to swear death was the same in New Zealand as in England, and the Court should apply the same test in determining -whether or not the facts justified an order to swear death. Mr. Byrne contended that the circumstances surrounding Montgomery's disappearance were such as to make death the only reasonable inference. The only other explanation was that Montgomery voluntarily abandoned his wife and family. Such abandonment would be a wrongful act on Montgomery's part, and would not lightly be presumed by the Court. Decision was reserved.—(Press Assn.)