Richelieu & Ontario Navigation Co. v. Boston Marine Insurance

Citations

• 136 U.S. 408
• 10 S. Ct. 934
• 34 L. Ed. 398
• 1890 U.S. LEXIS 2222

Syllabus

<p>Where a policy of marine insurance excepts losses and perils occasioned by want of ordinary care and skill in navigation, or by want of seaworthiness, and a statute of the country to which the insured vessel belongs requires all vessels to go at a moderate speed in a fog, and the insured vessel, having a defective compass, is stranded while going at full speed in a fog, and a loss ensues, the burden of proof is on the insured to show that neither the speed at which the vessel was running nor the defect in the compass could have caused, or contributed to cause, the stranding.</p> <p>The exception in a marine policy of losses occasioned by unseaworthiness is, in effect, a warranty that a loss shall not be so occasioned, and it is ■ therefore immaterial whether a defect in the compass of the vessel which amounts to unseaworthiness was or was- not known before the loss.</p> <p>'When in a policy of marine insurance it is provided that acts of the insurers or their agents in recovering, saving and preserving the property insured, in case of disaster, shall not be considered as an acceptance of an abandonment, such acts in sending a wrecking party on notice of k stranding of. a vessel, in taking possession of it and in repairing it, if done in ignorance of facts which vitiated the policy, do not amount to acceptance of abandonment; but it is a question for the jury to determine whether such acts, taken in connection with all the facts, and with the provisions in the policy, amounted to such an acceptance.</p> <p>Although a protest by a master of a vessel after loss is ordinarily not admissible in evidence during his lifetime, yet in this case it was rightfully admitted, because it was made part of the proof of the loss.</p> <p>A stranded insured vessel, having been recovered and repaired, was libelled and sold for the repairs, neither the owners nor the insurers being willing to pay for them. In an action between the owners and the insurer to recover the insurance; Held