Links: Home | swarblaw - law discussions

swarb.co.uk - law index


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: 1980 To: 1984

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

 
Harker -v- Caledonian Insurance Co [1980] 1 Lloyds Rep 556
1980

Lord Diplock
Insurance, Road Traffic
The monetary limit of the compulsory insurance was to be read into section 10, however "there are instances, of which costs and interest on the judgment are examples, where the insurer would be liable in the direct action for sums in excess of the permissible monetary limits upon the cover afforded by the policy."
Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Act 10
1 Citers


 
Spinneys (1948) Ltd -v- Royal Insurance Co Ltd [1980] 1 Lloyd's Rep 406
1980

Mustill J
Insurance
The court considered the meaning of 'war' in the context of an insurance contract: "The issue is not whether the events in Lebanon were recognised in the United Kingdom as amounting to a civil war in the sense in which the term is used in Public International Law with the corollary that this country would, if the occasion had arisen, have accorded to the participants the rights and demanded of them the duties appropriate to belligerents. The question here is whether there was a civil war within the meaning of the policy." and "Methods of pursuing political aims and of waging an armed struggle do not stand still. A situation existing today might fall outside a definition formulated in the past, not because the Judge or scholar who proposed it considered that the situation should be excluded but simply because the possibility that it might exist had not crossed his mind…The same comment applies to a collection of materials relating to Public International Law…The words under construction are to be given their ordinary business meaning, which is not necessarily the same as the one which they bear in Public International Law. The statements of jurists are a useful source of insights, but they do not provide a direct solution..." Three questions were generally involved: (1) Can it be said that the conflict was between opposing "sides"? (2) What were the objectives of the "sides" and how did they set about achieving them? (3) What was the scale of the conflict, and of its effect on public order and on the life of the inhabitants?
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 The Alfred Trigon; 1981 - [1981] 2 Lloyd's Rep 333

 
 Soya GmbH Mainz Kommanditgesellschaft -v- White; CA 1982 - [1982] 1 Lloyd's Rep 136
 
Balfour -v- Beaumont [1982] 2 Lloyd's Rep 493
1982


Insurance

1 Citers


 
Mason -v- Sainsbury (1782) 3 Dougl 61; [1782] EngR 37; (1782) 3 Doug 61; (1782) 99 ER 538
19 Apr 1982

Lord Mansfield CJ, Buller J
Insurance, Police
A claim was made upon insurance after a riot. The court asked asked "Who is first liable?" This was not an issue of chronology but of establishing where the primary responsibility lay to make good the loss. The Act laid the primary responsibility with the inhabitants of the hundred, and it did not matter that the insurer had indemnified the insured. Lord Mansfield said: "The facts of this case lie in a narrow compass. The argument turns much on want of precision in stating the case, as most arguments do. The office paid without suit, not in ease of the hundred, and not as co-obligors, but without prejudice. It is, to all intents, as if it had not been paid. The question, then, comes to this, can the owner, having insured, sue the hundred? Who is first liable? If the hundred, it makes no difference; if the insurer, then it is a satisfaction, and the hundred is not liable. But the contrary is evident from the nature of the contract of insurance. It is an indemnity. Every day the insurer is put in the place of the insured. In every abandonment it is so. The insurer uses the name of the insured. The case is clear: the Act puts the hundred, for civil purposes, in the place of the trespassers; and, upon principles of policy, as in the case of other remedies against the hundred, I am satisfied that it is to be considered as if the insurers had not paid a farthing."
Buller J said: "The better way is to consider this as a contract of indemnity. The principle is, that the insurer and insured are one, and, in that light, paying before or after can make no difference. I am, therefore, clearly of opinion, that the hundred cannot avail themselves of this defence." and "It has been admitted, and rightly, that the hundred is put in the place of the trespassers."
Willes J said: "I am of the same opinion . . The hundred is not answerable criminally, but they cannot be considered as free from blame. They may have been negligent, which is partly the principle of the Act."
Riot Act 1714
1 Citers

[ Commonlii ]
 
Soya GmbH Mainz Kommanditgesellschaft -v- White [1983] 1 Lloyd's Rep 122
1983
HL
Lord Diplock
Insurance, Transport
The cargo, soya beans, was insured against heating, sweating and spontaneous combustion risks. It arrived in a heated and deteriorated condition. The insurers denied liability saying that the proximate cause of the damage was inherent vice or nature of the subject matter insured, for which they were not liable under section 55(2)(c); and that the cover only extended to heating, sweating or spontaneous combustion brought about by some external cause. Held: As a matter of construction the policy did "otherwise provide" within the meaning of the opening words of section 55(2)(c) so that the perils of heating, sweating and spontaneous combustion arising from inherent vice or nature of the subject matter insured were covered.
Lord Diplock suggested a definition of 'inherent vice' in an insurance policy: "The facts as I have summarized them for the purpose of determining the question of construction of the HSSC policy in the instant case, assume that the loss resulting from the deterioration of the soya beans during the voyage was proximately caused by the "inherent vice or nature of the subject-matter insured". This phrase (generally shortened to "inherent vice") where it is used in section 55(2)(c) refers to a peril by which a loss is proximately caused; it is not descriptive of the loss itself. It means the risk of deterioration of the goods shipped as a result of their natural behaviour in the ordinary course of the contemplated voyage without the intervention of any fortuitous external accident or casualty." Inability to withstand the ordinary incidents of the voyage is an appropriate test of inherent vice.
Marine Insurance Act 1906 55(2)(c)
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Petrofina (UK) Ltd -v- Magnaload Ltd [1984] 1 QB 127; [1983] 2 Lloyd's Rep 91
1983


Insurance

1 Citers


 
Balfour -v- Beaumont [1984] 1 Lloyd's Rep 272
1984


Insurance

1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Gardner -v- Moore [1984] AC 548
1984
HL
Lord Hailsham LC
Insurance, Personal Injury
The uninsured first defendant deliberately drove a car at the plaintiff who was walking on the pavement, and thus caused serious injuries. The MIB accepted that the trial judge was bound by Hardy to declare that the Bureau was bound to indemnify the plaintiff in respect of his judgment against the first defendant. The Bureau appealed to the House of Lords. Held: The House dismissed the appeal, accepting the principle that a person "may not stand to gain advantage arising from the consequences of his own iniquity", but pointing out that the doctrine has its limits. The terms of policies issued by insurance companies were not relevant to the issues falling for decision in this case.
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Container Transport International Inc -v- Oceanus Mutual Underwriting Association (Bermuda) [1984] 1 Lloyd's Rep 476
1984
CA

Insurance
The plaintiffs operated a scheme relying upon insurance. The insurers refused to renew, and they then approached and obtained insurance from the defendants, but it was alleged without disclosing the full history. Held: The plaintiffs had made representations which were both material and untrue within s20. The circumstances would have been taken account of by a prudent insurer, and the defendant was free to avoid liability. The defendant could not be said to have waived disclosure, and nor was it under constructive notice.
Marine Insurance Act 1906 18(1) 20
1 Citers


 
The Padre Island [1984] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 408
1984


Insurance, Insolvency, Arbitration
The 1930 Act creates a statutory assignment of any rights of action in a case where the assured has become bankrupt or been wound up, the party to whom the benefit of a right of action under the liability insurance contract has been transferred may only operate that right in accordance with an arbitration agreement in the contract of insurance even if that agreement is expressed to refer only to the parties to the contract of insurance and not in terms wide enough to cover a statutory assignee.
Third Parties (Rights against Insurers) Act 1930
1 Citers


 
Bolivinter Oil SA -v- Chase Manhattan Bank NA [1984] 1 WLR 392; [1984] 1 Lloyd's Rep 251
1984

Sir John Donaldson MR
Banking, Insurance
The court emphasised "the great and fundamentally important separation" between bankers and re-insurers.
1 Citers


 
The Zephyr [1984] 1 Lloyds LR 58; [1985] 2 LLR 529
1984

Hobhouse J
Insurance, Contract
Whilst it is possible to make a contract which is partly oral and partly written, that is not the practice of the marine insurance market. The policy is the formal contractual document issued to the assured and unequivocally contains the terms of the contract. A contract of marine insurance is inadmissible in evidence unless contained in a policy signed by the insurer.
1 Citers


 
In re Multi Guarantee Company Ltd (No 2) Unreported, 31 July 1984
31 Jul 1984
ChD
Harman J
Insurance, Banking
The court considered whether funds in an account operated in accordance with the rules were held on trust. Having considered the nature of a trust account, the court held: "In my judgment, it is quite impossible to read these rules as creating trusts and requiring the application of ordinary trust principles to these accounts".
Insurance Brokers Registration Council (Accounts and Business Requirements) Rules Approval Order 1979
1 Citers


 
Copyright 2014 David Swarbrick, 10 Halifax Road, Brighouse, West Yorkshire HD6 2AG.