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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Insurance - From: 1970 To: 1979

This page lists 15 cases, and was prepared on 08 August 2015.

 
re Coleman's Depositories Ltd [1907] 2 KB 798
1970
CA
Vaughan Williams LJ
Insurance
An insurance policy covered the liability of an employer to compensate his workmen for injuries in the course of their employment. The court was asked whether it incorporated a condition requiring the employer to give immediate notice to the insurer of any accident causing injury to a workman and to forward to the insurer every notice of claim received by the employer within three days after receipt. There was a further condition that made the time element in these conditions a term of the essence of the contract. An accident befell a workman. Notice of the accident was not given to the insurer for over two months. Held: These conditions had not been incorporated into the contract, and the claim under the policy succeeded. Vaughan Williams LJ: "The only question in the case is the obligation of this condition as to immediate notice. As to the condition as to forwarding notice of claim received by the employer within three days of the receipt of such notice, I agree with Bray J that there was no obligation to forward such notice after the association had repudiated."
1 Citers



 
 Gray -v- Barr; ChD 1970 - [1970] 2 QB 626
 
Brown -v- Davis & Galbraith [1972] 2 Lloyds Reports 1; [1972] 3 All ER 31
1972

Sachs LJ
Insurance, Contract
The garage, had negotiated with the insurers and entered into a written agreement with them on their printed forms to repair cars of the insured clients. When the insurer failed, they sought to recover payment from the car owners. Held: The owner of the car as only liable in respect of the excess and other charges referable to him as opposed to the main cost of repairs which was payable by insurers. Sachs LJ said: "I only pause to add that there was no suggestion at the time or later that for any reason the insurers might repudiate liability to the insured, in which case a quite different position would result."
1 Citers


 
Wayne Tank and Pump Company Ltd -v- Employers Liability Assurance Corporation Ltd [1974] 1 QB 57; [1973] 2 Lloyd's Rep 237
1973
CA
Lord Justice Cairns, Roskill LJ
Insurance
The court discussed the effect of an exception clause in an insurance policy: "The effect of an exception is to save the insurer from liability for a loss which but for the exception would be covered. The effect of the cover is not to impose on the insurer liability for something which is within the exception." and Roskill LJ said: "if the loss is caused by two causes operating at the same time and one is wholly expressly excluded from the Policy, the Policy does not pay."
Marine Insurance Act 1906 55(1)
1 Citers



 
 In re Compania Merabello San Nicholas SA; ChD 1973 - [1973] Ch 75
 
Department of Trade & Industry -v- St Christopher Motorists Association Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 99
1974

Templeman J
Insurance, Road Traffic
The defendant company provided for the hire of a chauffeur if the insured was disqualified from driving. Held: Contracts of insurance are not confined to contracts for the payment of money, but may include a contract for some benefit corresponding to the payment of money.
Templeman J referred to Prudential and said: "That definition, including Channell J's careful pronouncement that there must either be the payment of a sum or some corresponding benefit, seems to me to meet the present case and particularly so when, in substance, there seems to me to be no difference between the defendant company paying a chauffeur on the one hand and on the other hand agreeing to pay to the individual member a sum of money which would represent the cost to him of providing himself with a chauffeur in the event of his being disabled from driving himself. I cannot see any difference in logic between the two and therefore I see no reason why, in the present case, the arrangement made by the defendant company should not amount to insurance."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Newbury -v- Davis [1974] RTR 367
1974
QBD
Lord Widgery CJ, MacKenna J
Road Traffic, Insurance
The owner of a vehicle agreed to lend it to someone else on condition that that person insured against third party risks. In the owner's absence, that person drove the car on a road without insurance. Held: The appeal against conviction was allowed: "the defendant did not permit Mr Jarvis to use the car. The defendant gave no permission to use it unless Mr Jarvis had a policy of insurance to cover its use, and he had none. Having no policy of insurance, he took the vehicle without the defendant's permission. In other words, permission given subject to a condition which is unfulfilled is no permission at all. It may be that the difference is a small one between a case where the owner gives unconditional permission in the mistaken belief that the use is covered by insurance, or in the disappointed hope that it will be covered, and the case where the permission is given subject to a condition and that condition is not fulfilled. But to my mind there is a difference and it is one of legal substance. On this view of the case the defendant committed no offence."
Road Traffic Act 1972
1 Citers


 
Berger and Light Diffusers Pty -v- Pollock [1974] CLY 3612
1974


Insurance

1 Citers



 
 March Cabaret Club & Casino Ltd -v- The London Assurance; 1975 - [1975] 2 Ll LR 169
 
Liberian Insurance Agency -v- Mosse [1977] 2 Lloyd's Rep 56
1977


Insurance

1 Citers


 
Commonwealth Construction Co Ltd -v- Imperial Oil (1977) 69 DLR (3d) 558
1977

de Grandpre J
Commonwealth, Insurance, Construction
(Supreme Court of Canada) de Grandpre J: "On any construction site, and especially when the building being erected is a complex chemical plant, there is ever present the possibility of damage by one tradesman to the property of another and to the construction as a whole. Should this possibility become reality, the question of negligence in the absence of complete property coverage would have to be debated in Court. By recognising in all tradesmen an insurable interest based on that very real possibility, which itself has its source in the contractual arrangements opening the doors of the job site to the tradesmen, the Courts would apply to the construction field the principle expressed so long ago in the area of bailment. Thus all the parties whose joint efforts have one common goal, eg the completion of the construction, would be spared the necessity of fighting between themselves should an accident occur involving the possible responsibility of one of them."
1 Citers


 
Hobbs -v- Marlowe [1978] AC 16
1978
HL
Lord Diplock
Insurance
The doctrine of subrogation in contracts of insurance operated entirely by virtue of an implied term of the contract of insurance: "I take it to be clear beyond all argument that an assured under a policy insuring him against loss of or damage to a chattel, on being indemnified by his insurers for a loss he sustained, does not thereby lose his right of action against the wrongdoer who caused the loss. Under the doctrine of subrogation he must bring an action against the wrongdoer if he is called upon by his insurer to do so and is indemnified against the costs; but it is his own cause of action, not that of his insurer, that he sues on; as against the wrongdoer the insurer has no cause of action of his own."
1 Citers


 
Seddon -v- Binions [1978] 1 Lloyd's Rep 381
1978
CA
Roskill LJ, Megaw LJ
Road Traffic, Insurance
The Court gave guidance on the proper method of interpreting a term of a motor insurance policy which defines the limitations of use subject to which the policy provides cover. Roskill LJ: "Inevitably, where one has a phrase such as 'social, domestic or pleasure purposes' used in a policy of insurance…there will be cases which will fall on one side of the line and cases which will fall on the other side. For my part, however much claims managers might wish it otherwise, I do not believe it is possible to state any firm principle under which it can always be predicted which side of the line a particular case will fall. It must depend on the facts of the particular case; and the facts of particular cases will vary infinitely in their detail." and "It seems to me that the solution to the problem can best be reached in this case by asking the question: what was the essential character of the journey in the course of which the particular accident occurred?" and "It may well be that there will be cases, as there have been in the past, where the essential character…of a particular journey was of a particular kind - and that that essential character will not be altered in the crucial respects merely because, incidental to that journey, something happens in the way of giving a lift to a friend as an act of courtesy or, to borrow Mr Justice du Parcq's expression [in Passmore v Vulcan Boiler & General Insurance Co Ltd (1936) 54 Ll L R 92], charity." Megaw LJ: "[I]n general, I should have thought that there is something that can clearly be called, as I would put it, a primary purpose, by which I intend the same meaning, I think, as Roskill LJ intended in using the phrase 'essential character of the journey'. If there be such a primary purpose, or essential character, then the Courts should not be meticulous to seek to find some possible secondary purpose, or some inessential character, the result of which could be suggested to be that the use of the car fell outside the proper use for the purposes of which cover was given by the insurance policy."
1 Citers


 
Re Allobrogia Steamship Corporation [1979] 1 Lloyd's Rep 190
1979

Slade J
Insurance, Insolvency
The court considered the effect, on the insolvency of the insured, of "pay to be paid" conditions in contracts of insurance. It was asked to order the winding–up of a foreign registered company. The company had to own assets within the jurisdiction of the English court which could be realised in a winding-up for the benefit of creditors; and that, in turn, depended on whether the company had any realistic prospect of success in a claim against its insurers (a P&I Club). The rules of that Club included a "pay to be paid" condition. The petitioners had obtained judgments against the company in respect of loss of cargo. Liability under those judgments was a risk covered by the company's membership of the Club. on the making of a winding-up order, the company's rights against the Club in respect of its indebtedness to the petitioners would be transferred to the petitioners under the provisions of section 1(1) of the 1930 Act. Held: The Club faced a dilemma. Either the insolvency did, ex hypothesi, render impossible compliance with the "pay to be paid" condition; or it did not. If the latter, then it the claim was not valueless; if the former, then the "pay to be paid" condition would have the substantial effect of altering the rights of the parties under the contract upon the insolvency of the company, and so had to be struck down by section 1(3) of the 1930 Act: "The use of the phrase 'directly or indirectly' in s.1(3) shows that provision in a relevant contract can fall foul of s.1(3), even though it does not expressly and in terms purport to avoid the contract or alter the rights of the parties upon the happening to the insured of any of the relevant events. The effect of the word 'indirectly' is in my judgment that any provision in such a contract which has the substantial effect of avoiding a contract or altering the rights of the parties upon the happening to the insured of any such events is invalidated, even though the contract does not in terms so provide." and 'The manifest purpose of s.1(3) is to make certain that, in any of the events specified in s.1(1), the third party shall be able to take the full benefit of the rights against the insurer, unaltered and undiminished by any provision in the contract which is designed directly or indirectly to cancel, prejudice or reduce such rights in the event of one or more of such events taking place.'
Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 1930 1(3)
1 Citers



 
 CVG Siderurgicia del Orinoco SA -v- London Steamship Owners' Mutual Insurance Association Limited 'The Vainqueur Jose'; 1979 - [1979] 1 Lloyds Rep 557
 
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