Star.
London, England, 1830-09-04 00:00:00

SUMMER ASSIZE&

LANCASTER, Winits•DAY, tin?. 1.
Nut Patus.--(11dore Mr. Justice &MM.)

NAIIIALL V. SZAIFE.
Mr. Por.t.ocz, with whom was Mr. Henderson, for the plaintiff,
stated to the Jury, that the present was an action brought by Mr. Has-
sell to recover from Mr. Skids, a shipowner and merchant of Liver.
pod, the amount of an insurance on a ship which, at the desired the
defendant, the plaintiff bad caused to be effected. The facts, as they
came out in evidence, were these. The plaintiff is an agent to the Al.
Hence Insurance Company of London, and an insurance broker residing
at LiverpooL On the 93d of February, 1829, the defendant (Mr.
Shift) wrote to him desiring him to effect an insurance on a vessel
called the Solon, bound on a voyage from Demerara to Liverpool, for
the sum of three thousand guineas. This note was received about
two o'clock in the day, and the plaintiff deeming it best, after
some inquiries amongst the underwriters at Liverpool, to hays the
Insurance effected in London, sent the order to his principals,
the Alliance Company. In the mean time an unfavourable re-
port respecting the Solon had got attend, and the inseam lose
from 30a. to 40s. (the ordinary rate at that period of the year), to
ten guineas per cent. The Alliance refused to underwrite the vessel
for 40s. per cent. and as the order to insure left the agent no alternative,
he was compelled to pay the high rate of tan guineas per cent; half of
this amount was covered by the underwriters at Lloyd's, and the other
half was underwrote by the Alliance Company. When the result was
communicated to Mr. &kalif, at Liverpool, be refused to recognise the
transaction, and said he would have nothing to do with it. He had pre-
viously heard of the arrival of the Solon at Wirers, off the coast of
Ireland and the defence set up was, that he had ven no instructions
to Mr. Hassell to send the order to London, but he (Mr. Haman)
had done so in order to advance the interests of his principals, the Al-
liance Company ; the premium also, it was contended, was so un-
reasonably high ato be quite preposterous to expect Mr. Skiffs to
Pay It.
Mr. Him:roma* for the defendant, urged this topic very forcibly to
the Jury, and called several witnesses, merchants and others, to prove
that it was in the option of the principal in an insurance to refuse his
sanction to any policy that had been effected at an unreasonable or un-
usually high rate s such had been the conduct of Mr. Simi& on the pre.
sent occasion, and that conduct was justified by all the laws of the mer-
cantile world.

PoLiocz ridiculed, very happily, this doctrine, which, if true,
would leave the owner of a ship in the enviable situation of having it in
his power to secure himself against all the risks of the sea, by refusing
to recognise the act of his agent, supposing his vessel. whilst the order
was recent or pending, or its completion unsanctioned by him, to arrive,
as the vessel in question had actually done, in the interval
The Learned JUDGIC summed up, and left it for the jury to decide
whether the plaintiff was justified under the circumstances in sending
the order for insurance to London ?

The Jury deliberated for some minutes, and after ascertaining by a
question to one of the witnesses, the class of the vessel (B 2) gave a
verdict for the plaintiff for the whole cost of the premium, 3351. bs.
The LORD Cams JUSTICE was occupied during the whole day in
bearing two eases, involving disputes between some parishioners and
rectors, as to the tithe medusas; the eases possessed no general interest,
being mere references to records and church leases.