SINGULAR FIRE INSURANCE CASE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1743, 20 September 1879, Page 2

SINGULAR FIRE INSURANCE CASE.

The “Sydney Morning Herald” of the 14th ultimo contained a detailed account of a fire insurance case lately tried before Mr Justice Faucett—that of Grossenden and Harding v the Hanseatic Fire and Marine Insurance Company. The plaintiffs had in* aured a stock of caryed Swiss fancy goods and fixtures, in a shop in George street, for £ISOO in the Hanseatic. The goods had been destroyed by fire, all the conditions endorsed on the policy had been complied with, and a claim made, which the defendants declined to satisfy, and therefore the plaintiffs elected to sue for the amount of the policy. Defendants pleaded (1) the goods and fixtures were not destroyed by fire; (2) that plaintiffs did not deliver particular account, or make proof of loss or damage as required by conditions of policy; (3) there appeared fraud, as defendants knew that the loss was much less than £1564 9s ; (4) the alleged loss happened by the connivance of the plaintiffs. From the evidence it ap. poared that the plaintiff Grossman had been the proprietor of a “ Swiss bazaar," stocked with a general assortment of Swiss carvings in wood, at Christchurch, New Zealand. In March, 1878, Grossman made an arrangement with Harding, a clerk in a mercantile house, to join with him as a partner to manage the financial part of the business, for doing which he was to receive onethird of the profits, although he introduced no capital into the concern. As business was slack in New Zealand, Harding, with some 14 cases of goods, came to Sydney, and on the 28th June, 1878, opened a shop at 334, George street, for the sale of the goods. When the business was being started, on the solicitation of a broker, Harding insured the stock and fixtures, which ho valued at £2531 4s, for £ISOO In the Hanseatic Fire and Marine Insurance Company. The policy was dated the Bth July, 1878. Grossman came to Sydney in August, and though both partners gave their attention to the business, they hardly paid expenses, and on one occasion an execution had to be put in for rent. On the night of the 24th, or the morning of the 25th December, the shop was destroyed by fire, and the greater portion of the stock was burnt, and what was saved from the fire was so much injured as to be valueless. On the 27th December a notice of the fire and a claim under the policy was sent into the defendants making the whole of their loss £1564 9s. The defendants declined to pay the amount. The company’s case was that the value placed upon the stock was excessive, and that at the outside it was not worth more than £IOOO ; that as much was saved as was destroyed, and that the salvage bad been valued by two tradesmen, Messrs Burley and Hagen, at £l3l. In the statement of their claim sent in by the plaintiffs no quantities were given, except in a few instances, but only their supposed value, which almost exactly amounted to the principal of the policy. The evidence of the fire was that the plaintiffs on the night of Christmas Eve shut up the shop at halfpast 10 p.m., all the lights having been extinguished and the doors securely fastened. The shop boy, the only other person employed in the business, went homo at the same time. The plaintiffs went as far as a wine shop in King street, where they stayed drinking wine till after two o’clock; by 2.45 they had reached their lodgings in Woolloomooloo, and went to bed. Soon after four o clock a.m. intelligence was received of the fire, which they reached at 4.30, and found the remains smouldering. For the defendants, evidence was given that at eleven o’clock (just twenty minutes after the plaintiffs had left the premises by their account) footsteps wore heard in their shop, and the noise of the back window closing ; also that at twelve o’clock, just one hour afterwards, a light was seen in the shop by a witness who happened to bo passing along the street and was attracted by the light at such an unusual hour. Further when first the shutters of the shop were broken open, several distinct fires appeared to be burning in different parts of the _ back of the shop and in the front room on the first floor. Also, that when a fireman (named Soholfield) broke open the first floor window to extinguish the fires on that floor, he saw a person, a young man, in a crouching position in the room. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs on the first, second, and fifth pleas, « sufficient evidence not been adduced on the last-named to prove the charge of arson.” On the fourth plea, of “fraud,” they found for the defendants, “ for in no other way can we account for such an exorbitant claim being put in.” The verdict was accordingly entered for the defendant*,