HERCULES INSURANCE COMPANY, and ROBERT SALMOND, Their Agent, v JOHN HUNTER Session Jury Sittings

The case as against Mr Girdwood was abandoned. A record having been made up, issues were prepared, and submitted to the approval of the Court, 12th December 1835, (see F.C. vol. xi. p. 121); and thereafter the following were sent to trial: ‘It being admitted that certain machinery, the property of the defender, Hunter, was insured by the pursuers, against damage by fire, for the period from 8th October 1831 to Martinmas 1832, and that the said machinery was, on the 22d of October 1831, destroyed by fire:

It being also admitted, that the said parties submitted to the amicable decision of Claud Girdwood, engineer, and Hector Grant, merchant in Glasgow, the claims arising for the damage done by the said fire, and that on the 3d and 4th days of April 1832, the said arbitrators pronounced the decree, of which No. 4. of process is an extract:

Whether the defender destroyed the said machinery, or caused the same to be destroyed as aforesaid, for the purpose of defrauding the pursuers of the said sum, insured as aforesaid?

Whether the said insurance was effected by the defender, upon a fraudulent over-valuation of the said machinery, with the intention of destroying the same by fire?’

Lord Moncreiff charged the Jury .—This case is certainly one of a very peculiar character, and one which is attended with considerable difficulty; and in consequence of some things that have occurred in the course of the investigation, I think it right to make a few observations on the nature of the contract of insurance which has formed the subject of these proceedings.