Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1885-01-03 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

DISPUTED LIFE-INSURANCE POLICY.  -SITRAIIIII,INARY CASE.,  After having occupied the Court of Queen's Bench for more than a week, the remarkable case of Lotinga c. the Commercial Union Insurance Company has come loan abrupt and unsatisfactory close by the disagreement of the mry on the evidence, and their consequent discharge. The plaintiff, Mrs Leah Lotinga, sued, as executrix of her late husband, upon a poll y of Insurance upon his life for £2OOO in the Commercial Union Insurmce Company. The policy NM dated March 17, 108:,, and he died on the 'rd July, 18h3. 'lke defendants, by their pleadings, admitted the policy, but they alleged that in the proposal for the insurance the deceased represented himself as being of sober and temperate habits, and that this was not true. They also relied upon a condition of the policy that if within two years the assured should die by his own hand, they were not to be liable, and alleged that this was what had happened. In other words, the defendants' plea charged the deceased with having been addicted to drink. To support the contention that Lollop had committed suicide there was the verdict of a coroner's inquest, but Mr. Justice Manisty clutioned the jury against letting themselves "be in 'rimmed in any way by this verdict." The evidence was most conflicting as to the deceased's inebriety or otherwise. It was not denied by some of the plainti lie witnesses that Lotinga drank a little whisky occasionally; but it was argued that he only did this in the course of business. Ile once told a friend that he never drank except " on business," and his own family swore that his usual drinks were claret, soda water, and lemon-squash. The minister of the Leeds Great Synagogue, who knew Lotinga intimately, gave him an en nalified character for sobriety, and added that, be ng himself a total abstainer, he should not have con ented to associate with a man who could be suspected of tippling. To all this must be appended the remark that Lotinga's doctor, in his report to the Assurance Company, stated that the deceased's liver and nerves were in perfect condition. Mr. Waddy, as counsel for the plaintiff, asked how a man could be "blotched in face, shattered in nerves, and ruined generally in constitution ' without these symptoms being apparent to the agents who were proposing him for an insurance policy? But then there was a mass of evidence from people who declared that Lotinga was always drinking. One witness spoke to his consuming five or MX pints of whisky a day. Another asserted that one day being in a company of five, Lotinga had taken his share of twelve bottles of cham. pagne drunk among those five in consequence of a bet, and that he bad been disgracefully intoxieat..d. The Ttnaes, summing up the case, nays: Amid these conflicting versions and appearances it is difficult to get at the truth; and yet it is much to be regretted that the jury did not see their way clear through the evidence, as the inquiry re:iched further than the problem as to whether one particular man was sober or intemperate. All peop'e who have dealings with insurance offices are interested in knowing whether a company can resist payment of a policy on the ground that the report of its OWII medical officer was cooing al. This was the really memento is point raised by the Lotinga case, and it is a pity that it could not be settled.