An insurance claim
There was an interesting court case in 1889 when a Steventon farmer, Mr Cornish, was killed on the railway line. He had taken out an insurance policy for £1000 but the company refused to pay on the grounds that he had exposed himself to obvious risk of injury. Because of this his widow was forced to bring an action at the Oxford Assize.
Apparently, he had crossed the line to get a match from a worker and a witness stated that he then recrossed the line without looking left or right. In summing up the judge, Lord Coleridge, warned the jury not to be swayed by sympathy for the fate of the poor man to do an injustice by giving away other peoples money and that in his opinion the risk was obvious to any reasonable man. Despite this the jury found for the widow and that Mr Cornish had met his death by ‘ordinary misadventure’
