PAYMENT OF LIFE INSURANCE

Southland Times, Issue 24233, 17 September 1940, Page 3

PAYMENT OF LIFE INSURANCE

BAKER DISAPPEARS ON ROUND CASE HEARD BEFORE COURT OF APPEAL (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 16.

The disappearance of William Alfred Joseph Suiter Montgomery, a baker, while on his daily round of delivering bread at Ngatea, near Thames, on February 3, 1936, and the question of the payment of his life insurance occupied the attention of the Court of Appeal today. Montgomery’s van was found near a wharf on the Piako river, but no trace of Montgomery has been found since then. At the time of his disappearance he was in good health and a sound financial position and there appeared no reason why he should have taken his own life. The view commonly accepted in the district was that he had accidentally fallen into the river, which was then somewhat flooded, and been drowned.

The Public Trustee, as holder of Montgomery’s will, dated 1925, applied in June last to the Supreme Court for an order granting leave to swear the death of the missing person so that probate could be granted, and the estate administered. This application was opposed by the A.M.P. Society, the •Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Company, and the State Fire Office, in which Montgomery’s life was insured for a total of £3OOO.

Mr Justice Johnston, by whom the application was heard, gave leave to swear death, at the same time pointing out that the insurance companies could defend the proceedings on the policy on the ground that there was no evidence of death.

The Court of Appeal is hearing an appeal from this decision. Mr G. G. Watson, for the appellant insurance companies, today said that the case was of general importance to all insurance companies, as Mr Justice Johnston’s judgment carried the state of law further against insurance companies than it had been before and made an order on facts which hitherto would not have been considered sufficient. He submitted that Mr Justice Johnston had adopted a wrong view of the law, which, although correct in England, was wrong in New Zealand. In New Zealand, continued Mr Watson, the effect of the Administration Act was that once probate or letters of administration were obtained the onus was then thrown on the insurance companies to prove affirmatively that a missing person was not dead but alive. In England the law placed no such burden on companies. Mr Justice Johnston, having accepted the law to be the same as in England, approached the facts in an attitude which he would not have adopted had he been aware of the true effect of the Administration Act. Had the judge approached the facts in the correct attitude he would not have held that the evidence produced was sufficient to enable him to make the order asked for.