COURT OF APPEAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 May 1922, Page 5

COURT OF APPEAL.

THE SMALLFIELD CASE. DECISION RESERVED. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, May 2. In the Court of Appeal, Mr. Ostler continued hie argument on liehalf of respondent in the Smallfield case. Appellant, he said, must rely on the evidence of Mrs. Smallfield as to her husband’s state of health after he had influenza. The judge at the trial had, however, rejected that evidence, in so far as it could be interpreted as meaning that Mrs. Smallfield had said her husband was never so well after he had influenza. All the evidence was consistent with Smallfield’s complaints having been incurred after he had signed bis proposal for insurance. The earliest direct evidence of any complaint as to heart was at a period four months after the date of the proposal for insurance. He submitted also that the insurance com-, I pany had not discharged the onus which lay on it of proving misrepresentation or non-disclosure by Smallfield. The witness to the proposal for insurance and the declarations therewith had not been called. It was essential for the company’s case that this witness should have been called at the trial. At the trial there had been no suggestion that there Should be a new trial, or that any further evidence should be called. The whole matter, when the jury was discharged, had been left to Mr. Justice Stringer. The Court reserved its decision.