Wakilii

Ditta v Eagle Star and British Dominions Insurance Co. Ltd (C.C. 120-1933.)

East African Court of Appeal · [1933] EACA 14 · 1933 Judgment for Defendant AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
First instance civil suit for recovery on motor vehicle insurance policy
Decision
Plaintiff's claim dismissed with costs

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions—always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

Where a proposer signs a proposal form filled in by an insurance company's agent at the proposer's request, the agent acts as the proposer's amanuensis, not as the company's agent. The proposer is bound by the contents of the form even if he did not read it. False statements in the proposal form entitle the insurer to avoid the contract regardless of whether the agent knew of the falsity. The plaintiff's claim for recovery under the motor vehicle insurance policy was dismissed.

Outcome

Plaintiff's claim dismissed with costs

Facts

The plaintiff insured his motor car with the defendant insurance company for Sh. 3,000 in May 1932. The car was destroyed by fire in March 1933. The plaintiff sought to recover under the policy. The defendants repudiated liability on the ground that the proposal form contained false statements in response to questions 8 and 14, which asked whether any motor car owned by the plaintiff had suffered damage and whether any company had declined or cancelled a policy. The plaintiff admitted the answers were incorrect but claimed he gave true answers verbally to Thanawalla, the defendants' agent and clerk, who filled in the form. The plaintiff, who was illiterate and did not know English, signed the form without reading it or having it read to him. The plaintiff had previously insured the same car with another company which cancelled the policy due to several accident claims. The court found as a fact that the plaintiff did not disclose the true facts to Thanawalla.

Issues

  1. Whether an insurance company's agent who fills in a proposal form at the proposer's request is the agent of the proposer or the agent of the insurance company.
  2. Whether a proposer who signs a proposal form without reading it is bound by its contents when those contents contain false statements.
  3. Whether the insurance company is entitled to repudiate liability under the policy on the ground of material misrepresentations in the proposal form.

Orders

  • Plaintiff's claim dismissed.
  • Costs awarded to the defendants.

Rules and key headnotes

Insurance — Motor Vehicle Insurance — Agency — Agent Filling Proposal Form
Where a proposer signs a proposal form which has been filled in at the proposer's request by an agent of the insurance company, in purported conformity with information supplied by the proposer, the agent is the agent of the proposer and not of the insurance company, and the proposer is bound by the contents of the proposal form.
Insurance — Proposal Form — Duty to Read — Binding Effect
Where a person signs without reading a proposal of insurance which another person has filled in, and wherein the declarer solemnly binds himself that its contents are true, he must be held to have adopted it and is bound by its contents.
Insurance — Material Misrepresentation — Agent's Knowledge — Imputation to Insurer
A proposer cannot afterwards be heard to say that any information in the proposal form is false to the knowledge of the insurance company, whether the agent who filled in the form had knowledge of such falsity or not, where the agent acted as the proposer's amanuensis.
Contract Law — Insurance Contracts — Utmost Good Faith — Material Misrepresentation
The law requires the utmost good faith in insurance contracts. False statements in a proposal form which is expressly stated to be the basis of the contract and a condition precedent entitle the insurer to repudiate liability.

Cases cited (5)

  • Keeling v Pearl Assurance Company (1923) 129 LT 573
  • Biggar v Rock Life Assurance Co [1902] 1 KB 516
  • Newsholme Brothers v Road Transport and General Insurance Co Ltd [1929] 2 KB 356
  • Bawden v London, Edinburgh and Glasgow Life [1892] 2 QB 584
  • New York Life Insurance Company v. Fletcher

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.

Ditta v Eagle Star and British Dominions Insurance Co. Ltd (C.C. 120-1933.) [1933] EACA 14 (1 January 1933)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.