DALMATIANS’ CLAIM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 601, 1 March 1929, Page 11

DALMATIANS’ CLAIM

LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES INSURANCE CO. SUED Counsel engaged in the Supreme Court this morning in a claim brought by two Dalmatians against an insurance company were confronted with a. laborious task on account of the difficulty one of the plaintiffs had in expressing himself in understandable English. Ivan Marinovich and Ivan Buncuga, storekeepers, Mangawai (Mr. McVeagh) sought to recover from the Australian Provincial Assurance Association, Ltd. (Mr. Finlay) the sum of £1,450, for which plaintiffs claimed they had been insured. The statement of claim set out that plaintiffs on or about January 30, 1928, effecte# a proposal with defendant and paid the sum of £l4 16s 4d as first premium for one year. They said defendant accepted the proposal. On February 20, 1928, buildings \ r alued at £7OO were destroyed by fire and six days later further property valued at £750 was similarly lost. The defendant company refused to pay on the following grounds: That the proposal had been submitted to and declined by seven other leading insurance companies; that plaintiffs had omitted to tell defendant that the property was mortgaged for £1,500. At the conclusion of plaintiff’s case, Mr. Finlay moved for a nonsuit on the ground that Marinovich had under cross-examination admitted that other companies had refused to insure his property. He had, however, failed to make this clear to the defendant company. The policy was therefore void in terms of its own provisions. Counsel cited authority to show that it was incumbent upon a proposer to see that, a proposal form was correctly filled in. In reply, Mr. McVeagh submitted that the case was one in which it was the duty of the company’s represents - tive to make clear to the peegon with whom he was dealing—a person whose knowledge of English was fragmentary —the meaning of the terms he signed, (Proceeding.)