Christen v Onderlinge Maatschappij

• Jurisdiction: Holanda
• Docket Number: Case No. 207
• Date: 05 Mayo 1951
• Court: Obsolete Court (Netherlands)

Holland, Council for the Restoration of Legal Rights (Judicial Division), The Hague.

Case No. 207

Christen

and

Onderlinge Oorlogs-Molestverzekerings-Maatschappij.

Belligerent Occupation — Respect for Private Property — Sequestration of Enemy Property by Occupant — Insurance of Property — Liability of Owner to Pay Insurance Premiums.

The Facts.—Christen was a Netherlands subject who owned a number of houses at The Hague. During the Second World War he was resident in Great Britain. In July 1942 the German occupation authorities treated his property in Holland as enemy property under Occupation Ordinance No. 26 of 1940, and placed it under compulsory administration. The “Verwalter” (administrator) took out a “molest”1 insurance policy on the houses with the defendant insurance company. After the war Christen refused to pay the outstanding insurance premiums for the year 1944 and the first part of 1945, and now claimed2 a declaration that the insurance policy was void.

Held: that the application must fail. It would not be reasonable to interfere in the legal position in this particular case. It was neither contrary to the law of nations, nor to the practice, followed by the Netherlands itself and its Allies during the war, of putting under compulsory administration the property of persons who happened to be in the country with which they were at war. The German Occupation Ordinance No. 26 of 1940 was therefore not unlawful, nor was it one of those declared in the Decree on Occupation Measures (No. E 93) of 1944 never to have been in force. On taking out the insurance policy with the defendant company the administrator was acting within his normal powers. There could therefore be no question of...