SMALLFIELD TRAGEDY.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 September 1921, Page 5

SMALLFIELD TRAGEDY.

A CLAIM FOR INSURANCE. STAY OF PROCEEDINGS. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. Considered judgment was delivered by Mr. Justice Adams to-day in the appl’.cation of the Government Life Insurance Commissioner for a stay of proceedings in the action by Lucy Smallfield, widow of C. R. Smallfield, stock agent, Hamilton, for £5OOO fife insurahce. His Honor held that at ihe time the writ was issued there were points in dispute, which had to be referred to arbitration. At both the inquests on deceased the defendant sought to establish suicide, but the Coroner’s verdict was similar in both cases—viz., death from heart failure, the Coroner not finding the cause of that failure, and thus leaving the matter open and subject to a presumption of innocence. In regard to the contention for the widow that there were clauses in the Life Insurance Act which enabled the matter to be dealt with in Court, His Honor had come to the conclusion reluctantly that that was not so. “If,” said His Honor, “I had been free to deal with the summons on the footing of an agreement to refer I should have considered it was a case in which a stay should be refused, upon the grounds stated by counsel for the plaintiff. The statute is, however, binding upon both parties, and removes from the jurisdiction of the Court all disputes between the Commissioner and any pensioner who has contracted for any annuity or payment under the Act, or anyone claiming to be such a person’s executor, administrator or assignee. The proceedings in the action will therefore be stayed.”