Bird v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance

On September 12, 1915, the defendant, a fire and marine insurance company, issued to the plaintiff its policy of insurance covering the body, tackle, apparel and other furniture of the canal boat, the Henry Bird, Jr. “ Touching the Adventures and perils which the said Company are content to bear and take upon themselves by this Policy, they are of the Sounds, Harbors, Bays, Rivers, Canals and Fires, - that shall come to the damage of the said boat, or any part thereof.” There was no express exception of damage from explosion.

On the night of July 30, 1916, a fire broke out from some unknown cause beneath some‘freight cars in the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company’s freight yards at Black Tom in the harbor of New York. The cars were loaded with explosives, and after the fire had burned at least thirty minutes, the contents of the cars exploded. This explosion caused another fire, which in turn caused another and much greater explosion of a large quantity of dynamite and other explosives stored in the freight

There is no doubt that when fire spreads to an insured building and there causes an explosion, the insurer is liable for all the damage (Wheeler v. Phenix Ins. Co., 203 N. Y. 283 ; Lynn Gas & Electric Co. v. Meriden Ins. Co., 158 Mass. 570 ; Scripture v. Mutual Fire Ins. Co., 10 Cush. 356 ; Waters v. Merchants Louisville Ins. Co., 11 Peters, 213, 225). We assume that, in the absence of some exception in the policy, a like liability follows when an explosion caused by fire occurs in neighboring buildings (Hustace v. Phenix Ins. Co., 175 N. Y. 292 , 302, 303). But the question here is whether space is a factor in the solution of the problem. The Appellate Division says that it is not; no matter how great the distance, the insurer remains liable. Other courts have held otherwise. The question came before the English Court of Common Pleas in Everett v. London Assurance Co. (19 Common Bench N. S., 126). There gunpowder ignited and exploded. The plaintiff’s building, half a mile away, was damaged by concussion. The court (Erle, Ch. J., and Willes and Byles, JJ.) gave judgment for the defendant. “ Speaking of this injury, no person would say that it was occasioned by fire. It was occasioned by a concussion or disturbance of the air caused by fire elsewhere.” A like ruling was made in Louisiana by a divided court (Caballero v. Home Mut. Ins. Co., 15 La. Ann. 217 ). In Tennessee, the ruling was the samé: “ Legal conclusions cannot always be safely

The problem before us is not one of philosophy (Pollock Torts [10th ed.], p. 37). If it were, there might be no escape from the conclusion of the court below. General definitions of a proximate cause give little aid. Our guide is the reasonable expectation and purpose of the ordinary business man when making an ordinary business contract. It is his intention, expressed or fairly to be inferred, that counts. There are' times when the law permits us to go -far back in tracing events to causes. The inquiry for us is how far the parties to this contractx intended us to go. The causes within their contemplation are the only causes that concern us. A recent case in the House of Lords gives the true method of approach (Leyland Shipping Co. v. Norwich Fire Ins. Society, 118 Law Times, 120, 125, decided January, 1918, not yet officially reported). Lord Shaw refers in his opinion to the common figure of speech which represents a succession of causes as a chain. He reminds us that the figure, though convenient, is inadequate. “ Causation is not a chain, but a net. At each point, influences, forces, events, precedent and simultaneous, meet, and the radiation from each point extends infinitely ” (Leyland Shipping Co. v. Norwich Fire Ins. Society., supra). From this complex web, the law picks out now this cause and now that one. The same cause producing the same effect may be proximate or remote as the contract of the parties seems to place it in light or shadow. That cause is to be held predominant which they would think of as predominant. A common-sense appraisement of everyday forms of speech and modes of thought must tell us when to stop. It is an act of “ judgment as upon a matter of fact ” (Leyland Shipping Co. v. Norwich Fire Ins. Society, supra).

Precedents are not lacking for the recognition of the space element as a factor in causation. This is true even in the law of torts where there is a tendency to go farther back in the search for causes than there is in the law of contracts (Smith, Legal Cause in Actions of Tort, 25 Harvard Law Review, pp. 126, 127, 326). Especially in the law of insurance, the rule is that “ you are not to trouble yourself with distant causes ” (Willes, J., in Ionides v. Univ. Marine Ins. Co., 14 C. B. N. S. 289; Leyland Shipping Co. v. Norwich Fire Ins. Society, 1917, 1 K. B. 873, 883, 893). “ In an action on a policy, the causa próxima is alone considered in ascertaining the cause of loss; but in cases of other contracts and in questions of tort the causa causans is by no means disregarded ” (Fenton v. Thorley & Co., 1903 A. C. 443, 454; Smith, supra, p. 326). The rule “ is based,” it is said, “ on the intention of the parties ” (Reischer v. Borwick, 1894, 2 Q. B. 550). But even in tort, where responsibility is less dependent on intention, space may break the chain of causes. The wrongdoer who negligently sets fire to a building, is not hable without limit for the spread of the flames. In our own state, there is a fixed and somewhat arbitrary restriction (Hoffman v. King, 160 N. Y. 618 ). But even in jurisdictions where the liability is broader, its bounds are the reasonable and the probable. The wrongdoer may be charged with those

The case comes, therefore, to this,: Fire must reach the thing insured, or come within such proximity to it that damage, direct or indirect, is within the compass of reasonable probability. Then only is it the proximate cause because then only may we suppose that it was within the contemplation of the contract. In last analysis, therefore, it is something' in the minds of men, in the will of the contracting parties, and not merely in the physical bond of union between events, which solves, at least for the jurist, this problem of causation. In all this, there is nothing anomalous. Everything in nature is cause and effect by turns. For the physicist, one thing is the cause; for the jurist, another. Even for the jurist, the same cause is alternately proximate and

It may be said that these are vague tests, but so are most distinctions of degree. On the one hand, you have distances so great that as a matter of law the cause becomes remote; on the other, spaces so short that as a matter of law the cause is proximate. The boat moored to the pier is damaged by fire when dynamite about to be loaded from the pier is ignited by a falling match. Fire destroys the city building when the wall of an adjoining building, weakened by the flames, collapses (Ermentrout v. Girard F. & M. Ins. Co., 63 Minn. 305 ; Russell v. German Fire Ins. Co., 100 Minn. 528 ). Between these extremes, there is a borderland where juries must solve the doubt (Milwaukee & St. Paul R. Co. v. Kellogg, supra; Donegan v. B. & N. Y. Ry. Co., 165 Fed. Rep. 869 , 871; Muller v. Globe, etc., Ins. Co., 246 Fed. Rep. 759 ; Ehrgott v. Mayor, etc., of N. Y., 96 N. Y. 264 , 280, 281; William France, Fenwick & Co., Ltd., v. North of England P. & I. Assn., 1917, 2 K. B. 522).

In this case, the facts are not disputed. The inferences to be drawn from them are not doubtful. The

The judgment should be reversed, and judgment ordered for the defendant, with costs in the Appellate Division and in this court.

His cock, Ch. J., Collin, Cuddeback, Pound, Crane and Andrews, JJ., concur.

Judgment reversed, etc.