1161 
COLLECTION OF LEGAL DECISIONS 
CONNECTED WITH 
LIFEER ASSURANCES; 
WITH SOME FEW REMARKS. 
Ross v. Brapsuaw, 1 Bl. 312. 
An insurance was made on the life of Sir James Ross for one year from 
October 1759 to October 1760 : the life was warranted in good health 
at the time of making the policy. 
In an action on the policy it appeared that Sir James had received a 
wound in his loins at the battle of La Feldt in the year 1747, which had 
occasioned a partial relaxation or palsy, so that he could not retain his 
urine or feces, and which was not mentioned to the insurer. 
Sir James died of malignant fever within the time of the insurance. 
All the physicians and surgeons who were examined for the plaintiff 
swore that the wound had no sort of connection with the fever; that the 
want of retention was not a disorder shortening life ; and that he might, 
notwithstanding, have lived to the ordinary age. The surgeons who 
opened him said that his intestines were all sound. For the defence, a 
physician stated that the want of retention was paralytic; but, being 
asked to explain, said it was only a local palsy arising from the wound, 
but did not affect life. On the whole, however, the witness did not look 
upon the insured as a good life. 
Per Lord Mansfield.—No question of fraud can exist in this case. 
When a man makes an insurance upon a life, generally, without any 
warranty of the state of the life insured, the insurers take all the risk, 
unless some fraud be committed by the person insuring, either by sup- 
pressing some circumstances which he knew, or by alleging what was 
false ; but if the insured knew no more than the insurer, the latter takes 
the risk. Wherever there is a warranty, it must, at all events, be proved 
that the party was a good life, which makes the question on a warranty 
much larger than on fraud. Here there was a warranty, and it is