The _Annual Register_ contains the following interesting case. July 25,
1857.—At the Maidstone Assizes an action arising out of a singular and
melancholy accident was tried. The action, Shilling _v._ The Accidental
Insurance Company, was brought by Charlotte Shilling, widow and
administratrix of Thomas Shilling, to recover from the defendants the sum
of £2000, upon a policy effected by the deceased on the life of her
father-in-law, James Shilling. The husband of the plaintiff, Thomas
Shilling, carried on the business of a builder at Malling, a short
distance from Maidstone. His father, James Shilling, lived with him; he
was nearly 80 years old, and very infirm, and his son used to drive him
about occasionally in his pony chaise. In the month of March, last year,
an application was made to the defendants to effect two policies for
£2000 each upon the lives of Thomas Shilling and James Shilling, and to
secure that sum in the event of either of them dying from an accident,
and the policies were completed and delivered in the following month of
June. On the evening of the 11th of July, 1856, about half-past 7
o’clock, the father and son went from Malling with a pony and chaise, for
the purpose of proceeding to a stone quarry at Aylesford, where Thomas
Shilling had business to transact, and they never returned home again
alive. There where two roads by which they could have got to the quarry
from Malling, one of which was rather a dangerous one to be taken with a
vehicle and horse, on account of a steep bank leading to the river Medway
being on one side and the railway passing close to the other; but this
route, it appears, was much shorter than the other, which was nearly two
miles round, and it was consequently constantly used both by pedestrians
and carriages. About 8 o’clock the pony and chaise and the father and
son were seen on this road, and upon arriving at the gate leading to the
quarry, Thomas Shilling got out, leaving the pony and chaise in charge of
his father. Mr. Garnham, the owner of the quarry, was not at home, and
while one of the labourers was conversing with Thomas Shilling, the sound
of an approaching train was heard, and the men advised him to go back to
his pony, for fear it should take fright at the train, and he said he
would do so, as it had been frightened by a train on a previous occasion.
He accordingly went towards the gate where he had left the pony and
chaise, and from that time there was no evidence to show what took place.
The family sat up the whole night awaiting the return of their relatives
in the utmost possible alarm at their absence; but nothing was heard of
them until the following morning, when a bargeman found the drowned pony
and the chaise and the dead bodies of the father and son floating in the
Medway, near the spot where the chaise had been last seen on the previous
evening. They were taken home, and a coroner’s inquest was held, and the
only conclusion that could be arrived at was that the pony had taken
fright at the noise of the train, which appeared to have passed about the
time, and that he had jumped into the river, which at this spot was from
12 to 14 feet deep.
The policy on the life of the father had been assigned to the son, whose
widow claimed the two sums insured from the defendants. That payable on
the death of the son they paid: but they refused to pay that due on the
father’s policy, and pleaded to the action several pleas, alleging
certain violations of the conditions; and singularly enough, considering
that they had not disputed the son’s policy on the same ground, they now
pleaded that the death was not the result of accident, but arose from
wanton and voluntary exposure to unnecessary danger.
The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff.