Robbert Willilams, Chairman of the Society or Partnership called the Hope Assurance Company, v John Thomas Barber Beaumont
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 08 November 1833 |
| Date | 08 November 1833 |
| Court | Court of Common Pleas |
English Reports Citation: 131 E.R. 904
S. C. 3 Moo & Sc. 705; 3 l. J. P. 31. Referred to, South getton coal company North Eastern News Association, (1894) I Q. B. 147
[260] robert williams, Chairman of the Society or Partnership called the Hope Assurance Company, v. john thomas barber beaumont. Nov. 8, 1833. [S. C. 3 Moo. & Sc. 705 ; 3 L. J. C. P. 31. Referred to, South Hetton Goal Company v. North Eastern News Association, [1894] 1 Q. B. 147.] An act of parliament, after reciting the difficulties experienced by joint stock companies, in suits for recovering debts and enforcing obligations, and in the prosecution of offenders, enacted, that actions commenced by the Hope Company for recovering debts, or enforcing claims or demands then due, or which thereafter might become due or arise to the company, might be commenced, and indictments for offences be preferred,, in the name of the chairman :-Held, that the chairman might sue for a libel on the company, although it was not a corporate body. The declaration stated that John Thomas Barber Beaumont was attached to answer Robert Williams, chairman of the society or partnership called the Hope Assurance Company, the nominal Plaintiff in the suit, for and on behalf of the said Hope Assurance Company, according to the form of the statute in such case made and provided; that a policy had been effected with the Hope Life Assurance Company, for 50001. on the life of one John Stevenson ; that Sir George Duckett had exhibited his bill in the Court of Exchequer of pleas against the Plaintiff Robert Williams to recover the said sum of 50001.; that the cause came on to be tried on the 25th of November 1831; that the Hope Assurance Company, previously to the action being commenced, offered to refer the said claim to arbitration; that the said claim was resisted at the trial on the ground that Stevenson was not in good health at the time of effecting the said policy of assurance ; that the Hope Assurance Company exercised and carried on the business of effecting assurances on lives; and that the Defendant, knowing the premises, wickedly, maliciously, and intending to injure the company, and in order to cause the imputation in the libel thereinafter set forth, to be believed, caused to be published in the Morning Chronicle the following false and malicious libel of and concerning the said Hope Assurance Company; of and concerning the same company in its aforesaid business; of and concerning the [261] said policy; and of and concerning the said cause so tried as aforesaid, and of the conduct of the said cause by the Hope Assurance Company:- " To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle.-Sir, The case in the Court of Exchequer, reported a few days since, in which the Hope Life Office successfully resisted a claim of 50001. on a policy which they had issued, on the ground that the life insured had not made known a temporary ailment, which it was alleged he had had a year before, is of great importance to the public, as shewing the absolute insecurity of such contracts in the Hope Life Office. Here, the life in question was a gentleman of most healthy appearance, and proved by his family and friends never to have had a day's serious illness up to the period of the insurance; he appeared at the office, and before their own medical man, who, after due examination, reported that he was a good and healthy life. He was immediately accepted by the directors; and, upon the faith of their insurance for 50001., a corresponding sum was advanced. It was not even pretended that there was any concealment or want of caution and good faith in the insured; nor was it averred that the life had given a false answer to any one question put to him by the examiner. But upon the more than suspicious and unsupported testimony of an obscure foreigner, given in a foreign country, that this gentleman, had had, a year before, some equivocal signs of a disease, which disease does not affect the duration of life, which is cured with more certainty than any other, and which is never a matter of enquiry with the medical examiners of life insurance offices, the 10BING. 262. WILLIAMS V. BEAUMONT 905 policy under the conditions of the Hope office is invalidated, and payment evaded. By the above decision, therefore, it appears that if a witness be procured to say that at some former period of a gentleman's life he had had a disease or infirmity which he did not mention at the office when the [262] insurance was opened, the policy may be rendered void, and all the money paid upon it forfeited to the Hope company. He may have forgotten the by-gone ailment; he may have thought it not worth mentioning; it might not have been proper to have mentioned it: no matter, the policy is void. But this is not the worst: if there have been neither failure of memory nor of communicativeness; nay, if there have been no previous disease or infirmity whatever, a witness may be forthcoming to supply all that is wanted; the dead man cannot reply to his slanderer. That service, to be sure, might not be unattended with some risk if worked in England, but under a commission to be worked in Paris there would be none; as many witnesses to prove any thing wanted might be had there as there were twenty-franc pieces to bestow. And turning from hypotheses to facts, I unhesitatingly affirm, that more glaring, wilful, and corrupt perjury never polluted a court of justice than was used and commented upon as good evidence during the above trial. Now then, I ask, if a claim on a policy in the Hope office may be rendered void by means like these, what security is there in such a policy 1 Absolutely none whatever. It is, therefore, no more than an act of justice to the public, to call their...
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