CURIOUS CASE OF MARINE INSURANCE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1308, 29 May 1878, Page 3

CURIOUS CASE OF MARINE INSURANCE.

[From the “ Times,”] In the Court of Queen’s Bench, on the sth March, the action Pickup v. the Mersey Insurance Company reached a remarkable phase of merino insurance. A ship had loaded a cargo of rice at Rangoon which was the subject of several policies of insurance in different companies. The ship had sailed from Galle to Kangoon in ballast, and there, after loading, the ship sailed homewards on the 9th of June; but she encountered rough weather and was driven back to Kangoon Eiver, where she arrived on the 19th, and there she grounded and was strained, but was got off. On a survey, which was made while she was lying in the river, it was found that in several places where the copper had been knocked off the bottom the timbers were so infested with worms that it was impossible to proceed; and she was accordingly abandoned, and the owner claimed on the insurance, A question was raised as to whether the vessel was seaworthy at the commencement of the voyage from Galle, but this was ultimately found in favor of the owner ; and the question came to bo whether the ship was sound when she left Rangoon, and the worms had got into her after her return in consequence of the copper having been displaced in Per bottom by reason of the injuries she had sustained, or whether the ship was unsound by reason of the worms before she left Kangoon; and this was the great question contested at the trial of actions on several policies, and with different results, before different Judges and different juries. Chi the trial of one action before Baron pleasby, the jury, the question being left generaffv to them, found for the owner, and that verdict was sot aside. In the present action the case was tried before Mr Justice Field, and the learned Judge directed the jury that though the presumption prima facie was that a ship was seaworthy, yet that if she was found in an unsound state within a short time after setting sail the presumption was rebutted, and the onus of proof reversed and thrown on the owner to prove that the vessel was sound; and that in this case, in which the interval was eleven days, this principle applied ; and that, therefore, the onus w r as on the owner of proving that the ship was sound ; and on that direction the jury found in favor of the underwriters, though in another of the actions they found in favor of the owner ; and the question was now raised in the present case wdiether the verdict for the underwriters on the direction stated should stand, or whether it should beset aside on the ground of misdirection. The case had been argued at length in the last sitting, and the Court had taken time to consider their judgment. The Lord Chief Justice read a written judgment in favor of the owner, the plaintiff.