Bentaloe v. Pratt
U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania
This was an action on a policy of insurance on goods in the sloop Polly, from the lading at Providence, in Rhode Island, to the unlading at Baltimore, in Maryland.
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This was an action on a policy of insurance on goods in the sloop Polly, from the lading at Providence, in Rhode Island, to the unlading at Baltimore, in Maryland. The goods were valued at £3750 in the policy; the whole subscription was 8000 dollars, of which the defendant had subscribed £100: and the action was to recover an average loss-on account of fifteen bales of cotton, (being: part of twenty-one bales shipped at Providence) alleged to be wet through, and damaged on the voyage by the sea, winds and; weather, &c. The following points arose in the course of the trial. 1st The plaintiff…
1Opinion of the Court
THE COURT,
in charging the jury on this point, gave no decided opinion; but merely stated that though this was the proper rule, and easily applied in the case of Lewis v Rucker, because there, each hogshead was separately valued in the policy, yet, as here the whole cargo was valued together, it was impossible, from the face of the policy, to come at the proportion of loss, which each bale bore to the value insured. That to be sure, there must be an invoice, and no doubt a value affixed to each bale; but as this was a cargo valued in lump in the policy at Providence, it was not certain that…
2Cited by2 opinions
- Allen v. National State BankCourt of Appeals of Maryland · 1901
- Strickland v. KirkMississippi Supreme Court · 1875