Volume 1, Draft Civil Code - Digital exhibitions & collections - McGill ...

OBLIGATIONS 515
the contract, insurance against total loss includes a constructive
total loss as well as an actual total loss.
1102 Where the assured brings an action for a total loss and
the evidence proves only a partial loss, he may recover for a
partial loss if partial losses are covered by the contract.
1103 Where goods reach their destination in specie, but by
reason of obliteration of marks, or otherwise, they are incapable
of identification, the loss, if any, is partial and not total.
1104 There is an actual total loss where the assured is
irretrievably deprived of the subject-matter insured or where it
is destroyed or so damaged as to lose its identity.
In the case of an actual total loss, no notice of abandonment
need be given.
1105 There is a presumption of actual total loss where a ship
has disappeared and no news of it has been received after a
reasonable time.
1106 There is a constructive total loss where the subjectmatter
insured is reasonably abandoned on account of its
actual total loss appearing to be unavoidable, or because it
could not be preserved from actual total loss without an
expenditure which would exceed its value when the expenditure
had been incurred.
1107 In particular, there is a constructive total loss:
1. when the assured is deprived of the possession of the
subject-matter insured by a peril insured against, and it
is unlikely that he can recover it, or the cost of recovering
it would exceed its value when recovered;
2. when the cost of repairing the damage to goods and
forwarding them to their destination would exceed their
value on arrival;