The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-05-01 00:00:00

A NICE POINT OF INSURANCE LAW.

In the High Court of Justice, the cause of " Winspear v.
The Accident • Insuranee Company (Limited)," has been
heard.
Mr. F. Crump (with whom was Mr. Beresford) argued for
the plaintiff; Mr. Gainsford Bruce (with whom was Mr.
Yates) for the defendant.—We take the following report of
the case.from Wednesday's Times:—

This was a special case stated, and involved a nice
point, of insurance law. The plaintiff is the executrix
of W. Winspear, who on February 5, 1879, effected a
policy of "insurance against death or disablement
from accident" for £l,OOO on his own life, at a pre-
mium of £3. On the 26th of May following, while
the policy was in force, the "insured, while crossing
and fording a stream or brook called the River Rea,
in the parish of Edgbaston, near Birmingham, was
seized with an epileptic fit, and fell down in the
stream, and then and there, while suffering such fit,
was drowned in the waters of the brook. The insured
did not sustain any personal injury to occasion death
other than drowning. The plaintiff contended that
the death of the insured was occasioned by personal
ihjury caused by accidental, external, and visible
means within the intention of the policy. The de-
fendants contended that the death of the insured was
not the direct effect of an injury within the intention
of the policy, but was caused by or arose from an
epileptic fit, or from an injury "caused by or arising
from natural disease or weakness or exhaustion con-
sequent upon disease," and that the plaintiff was not
entitled to make any claim under the policy. The
question for the opinion of the Court was whether the
death of the deceased happened under such circum-
stances as to entitle the plaintiff to-7 claim under the
policy in respect of the death of the insured. If the
Court should answer "Yes," then judgment to be
entered for the plaintiff for £l,OOO, with costs ; if the
Court should answer "No," then judgment to be
entered for the defendants, with costs.
The argument for the defendants was that the acci-
dent had been caused by the disease—epilepsy—fol-
lowing the words above quoted from the policy, which
was only meant to cover pure accidents, not disease,
whereas the plaintiff urged that the cause of death—
drowning—was "an injury caused by some outward
and visible means of which proof satisfactory to the
directors can be furnished."

Their Lordship adopting the latter view, gave
judgment for the plaintiff, the Lord Chief Baron with-
out a shadow of doubt, Baron Huddleston with some
hesitation.

The Lord Chief Baron observed that drowning—i. e.,
the suffocation by the stopping of breath—was the
I causa callsans of death. The epilepsy was only what
the logicians called the sine qua non, and had nothing
toLdo with it beyond causing the deceased to, fall for-
ward into the water.

Baron Huddleston pointed out that, following the
language of Mr. Justice Wines in Fitton's case, and
Baron Martin and the Lord Chief Baron in Smith's
case, where an ambiguity occurred, a policy should be
construed in favour of the insured, and that drowning
had been decided to come within the words of these
policies.
Mr. Yates asked for a stay of execution with a view
to an appeal, as the case was one of vast importance to
the defendants; but

The Court declined to grant it, even on the condition
of the defendants paying the money into court to abide
the event of the appeal, as the case was, in the opinion
of the Lord Chief Baron, a clear one.
Judgment for the plaintiff.