Lockwood v. Sangamo Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 31 March 1870
• Citation: 46 Mo. 71
• Parties: RICHARD J. LOCKWOOD et al., Respondents, v. THE SANGAMO INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

46 Mo. 71

RICHARD J. LOCKWOOD et al., Respondents,

v.THE SANGAMO INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1870.

Madill and Dillon, for appellant.

I. The instructions inform the jury that this boat, in order to be seaworthy, was required to be able to endure the ordinary perils of navigation on the Missouri river. And such is the law. (1 Phillips on Ins. 544; 2 Sumn. 197.) In other words, if the boat was lost by any injury, cause or peril not extraordinary in its character, the defendant could not be held liable. But the court further instructed the jury, in effect, to return a verdict for the plaintiffs if they found that the boat was lost from any peril of the river-- utterly ignoring the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary perils. The result was that this boat, rotten from the outset, and totally unfit and unable to endure the usual and ordinary difficulties of navigation to be met with by all boats on all trips in the Missouri river, finally yielded to a series of these difficulties and sunk. And the jury were at liberty to find, and did, under the letter and spirit of this instruction and the argument of plaintiffs' counsel upon this precise point, find for the plaintiffs.

II. The third instruction, given at the instance of plaintiffs, required the jury to determine whether “an abandonment” had been made of the boat to the defendant. It does not, nor does any instruction in the case, attempt to instruct this jury what, in contemplation of law, constitutes an abandonment.

III. The third instruction, moreover, required the jury, if they believed the boat was damaged by sinking to more than half its value, and that abandonment, etc., was made, to find for the plaintiffs. On the contrary, the true rule is “that if the amount required to be expended in raising and repairing the vessel will be more than one-half of the value of the vessel when repaired, at the place of repair, then it is a case for constructive total loss by abandonment.” (Bradlie et al. v. Maryland Ins. Co., 12 Pet. 394.)

IV. The defendant asked an instruction on the question of damages based on the proof of the value of the boat, as distinguished from the value of the interest insured as stated in the policy. This instruction was refused. The plaintiffs, on the contrary, asked and the court gave an instruction on the question of damages, based on the value of the interest stated in the policy instead of the value of the boat. This was error. (Peele et al. v. Merchants' Ins. Co., 3 Mason, 70; Bradlie et al. v. Maryland Ins. Co., 12 Pet. 378; 2 Pars. Mar. Ins. 134.)

Rankin & Hayden, for respondents.

I. The real question for the jury was, what was the proximate cause of the loss? and the main instruction asked by the plaintiffs did not go nearly so far in their favor as the court would have been justified in giving. (St. Louis Ins. Co. v. Glasgow, 8 Mo. 713; Columbia Ins. Co. v. Lawrence, 10 Pet. 508; Waters v Washington Ins. Co., 11 Pet. 213; Peters v. Warren Ins. Co., 14 Pet. 99; Merchants' Ins. Co. v. Butler, 20 Md. 41; Buck v. The Royal Exchange, 2 B. & A., 73; Walker v. Mortland, 5 B. & A. 171; Dixon v. Saddler, 5 M. & W. 405; 8 M. & W. 895; Redman v. Wilson, 14 M. & W. 476.) No recent decisions can be found antagonistic to the law as laid down in these cases. On the contrary, where changes have been made, they have been from the doctrine of the old English law, which held the assured responsible for negligence, to that which holds the underwriter liable for negligence unless that negligence is the direct and proximate cause of the loss. See the changes which have been made in Ohio (Perrins, Adm'r, v. The Protection Ins. Co., 11 Ohio, 147); and in New York (Mathews v. Howard Ins. Co., 11 N. Y. 9); also Copeland v. N. E. Ins. Co., 2 Metc. 432; C. J. Gibbon's account of the law and the reasons for it, as now held in England and America (Am. Ins. Co. v. Insley, 7 Penn. St. 223), and the more recent cases which show that the maxim causa proxima, etc., is now more strenuously insisted upon and more freely applied than ever before. (Nelson v. Suffolk Ins. Co., 8 Cush. 477; Johnson v. Berkshire Ins. Co., 4 Allen, 388; Phœnix Ins. Co. v. Cochrane, 51 Penn. St. 149.)

II. The second instruction, as to the quantum of damages, was properly refused by the court. ( a) The policy was a valued policy, and the agreed value is conclusive on the parties, except where there is a total want of insurable interest, or fraud, neither of which was pretended. (The Marine Ins. Co. v. Hodgson, 6 Cranch, 206; Alsop v. Commercial Ins. Co., 1 Sumn. 451; Patapsco Ins. Co. v. Coulter, 3 Pet. 242; Carson v. Marine Ins. Co., 2 Washb. 408; 16 La. Ann. 235; 3 Blatchf. 231. ( b) There was no competent evidence tending to show that, at the time the policy was taken out, the value was less than that stated in the policy. ( c) The instruction which the court gave at the request of the plaintiffs, upon the measure of damages, directed the jury only to “assess the damages at the amount of the damage sustained to the interest insured;” so that, even if defendant's position were correct, it could not complain.

BLISS, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendant issued to the owners, for the use of plaintiffs, a policy of insurance upon the steamer Bridgeport, bound for the upper Missouri. The boat was sunk a little below Sioux City, and this suit was brought to recover the amount of the insurance. The defense was based upon the alleged misconduct of the master, who was one of the owners, and a large amount of testimony was offered upon both sides, making a ponderous record, but the only questions of law preserved are raised by the instructions.

The first, given at the instance of the plaintiffs, instructed the jury that the steamer, to have been seaworthy when she started, “must have been sufficiently strong and staunch, well manned, equipped, and supplied to endure the ordinary perils of the voyage she was about to make,” etc. Of this the defendant does not complain, but strongly condemns the second, which is as follows: “If the jury believe from the evidence that the steamboat Bridgeport was seaworthy at the time she left the port of St. Louis, that on her voyage she met with a peril or perils of the river above Omaha, which caused her to sink and become lost, then it is immaterial for the jury to consider whether, before she met with the perils which so caused her loss, she received other injuries which only indirectly or remotely contributed to the loss, or whether the negligence, carelessness, or mistakes of those in charge of her remotely contributed to the loss.”

The defendant does not directly object to the well-settled doctrine contained in the latter part of this instruction, but complains that as a whole it...