Foreign heart bypass patient v Southern Cross: Court ruling on $105,000 claim

The man needed heart bypass surgery while he was visiting here. Photo / 123rf, File

A foreigner who bought travel insurance from New Zealand’s Southern Cross is suing that business from overseas for $105,000 after he needed a $116,000 heart bypass at Auckland Hospital while he was staying here for a short time.

Stewar Singh Jabbara bought a policy to cover him from only December 2020 to February 2021 but during that time here, he suddenly needed heart bypass surgery, a court decision showed.

Jabbara had that done at Auckland Hospital but because he is a foreigner, he was invoiced for $116,000.

He relied on Southern Cross to pay that out but it has not fully covered the expense.

So he is taking action in the District Court against Southern Cross Benefits, which owned Southern Cross Travel then.

But in the meantime, he made an application to the High Court at Auckland where he represented himself asking to get the case heard there.

Justice Pheroze Jagose has issued a March 27 judgment rejecting his application but also summarising his position.

Jabbara appeared remotely at the hearing via audio-visual from India, the decision said.

He was only in this country for a relatively short time from February 2020 but had bought health insurance to cover part of his stay.

It was during the insured period that he suddenly went to Auckland Hospital for the complex surgery.

“On December 31, 2020, Mr Jabbara underwent heart bypass surgery at Auckland Hospital, incurring liabilities of $116,432.47 of which $105,000 remains outstanding. He contends Southern Cross refused to indemnify him under the policy in reliance on exclusion clauses in its terms and conditions. He asserts such clauses were not drawn to his attention at the time of entering the contract and therefore were not incorporated into the contract,” the decision issued after a hearing on March 23 said.

Jabbara decided to seek summary judgment against Southern Cross, claiming it had no arguable defence in the matter.

He had paid fees for a hearing on February 23.

But the District Court had decided that the hearing would be limited in its scope for leave. The application for a summary judgment would only proceed at a later stage if the leave applications succeeded, it decided.

During the High Court hearing, Jabbara advised he had difficulty hearing and “was not very tech savvy”, the judge noted.

His daughter Jaisleen Khanna was with him at the hearing. She sought to appear on his behalf.

But the judge ruled against that. When told, Justice Jagose got an adverse reaction.

“I asked Ms Khanna to communicate that decision to Mr Jabbara. She advised ‘she’ would appeal my decision to the Court of Appeal,” Justice Jagose noted.

Jabbara had decided to apply to the High Court to hear his case, claiming that a hearing in the District Court would be unfair.

“The current procedural trajectory of the proceedings in the court below is likely to result in an unjust outcome,” is how the High Court judge summarised his case.

Moving the case from the District to the High Court would mean a quicker outcome, Jabbara told Justice Jagose.

Confident of a victory, he said that would enable faster payment of Auckland Hospital’s invoice which was of substantial public interest and in the interests of justice, he told the High Court judge.

Southern Cross, represented by Tiffany Utama, opposed that because the proceedings were already set down for a substantive hearing in the District Court.

The matter was “a straightforward dispute raising no issue of public importance”, the insurer told the High Court.

Jabbara claimed Southern Cross has exploited its financial superiority to his detriment, the March decision said.

The case did not hear the substantive matter, nor extensive evidence from Southern Cross.

Jabbara’s application that the High Court hears his matter was rejected.