Court orders insurance company to pay fire victim

In court news, the Court of Appeal has upheld an order that Atlantic Insurance pay 65 thousand dollars to policy holder Stephen Smith whose thatched house burned down in 1996. The house, which was five hundred yards from the Jaguar Reef Lodge, is believed to have caught fire when sparks from a bush fire ignited the roof. During the trial Atlantic Insurance’s attorney Denys Barrow had argued that the testimony of the witnesses was contradictory and that the cause of the fire was not clearly established. Justice Howard Nathan had ordered that the company pay Smith because Atlantic Insurance failed to prove that the cause of the fire was anything other than accidental. Today the three judges on the Court of Appeal said that Justice Nathan’s decision was the right one and ordered the company to pay Smith the 65 thousand dollars he has been waiting due for almost three years.