McLane Swift & Co. v. Botsford Elevator Co.

• Decision Date: 07 June 1904
• Citation: 99 N.W. 875,136 Mich. 664
• Parties: McLANE, SWIFT & CO. v. BOTSFORD ELEVATOR CO.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

99 N.W. 875

136 Mich. 664

McLANE, SWIFT & CO. v. BOTSFORD ELEVATOR CO.

Supreme Court of Michigan

June 7, 1904

Error to Circuit Court, St. Clair County; Harvey Tappan, Judge.

Action by McLane, Swift & Co. against the Botsford Elevator Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant brings error. Reversed.

Phillips & Jenks, for appellant.

Arthur B. Williams and Avery & Walsh, for appellee.

CARPENTER J.

In the fall of 1901, plaintiff shipped certain oats from Battle Creek, Mich., to the eastern cities. It arranged with defendant to clip these oats at its elevator in the city of Port Huron, and to reship them on their original bills of lading. While these oats were in defendant's elevator and before they were clipped, the building and the oats were accidentally destroyed by fire. It is affirmed by plaintiff and denied by defendant that, if the latter had faithfully performed its obligations, the oats would have been shipped from the elevator before the fire occurred. Assuming plaintiff's claim to be sound, the question arises whether the failure of defendant to perform this obligation was a proximate cause of the loss of the oats. The trial court decided that it was, and this decision resulted in a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff. We think this decision erroneous. Defendant's neglect to clip and ship the oats had no direct relation to their destruction. It simply resulted in leaving them where they were burned by a fire for which defendant was not responsible. Defendant's neglect was therefore, at most the remote cause, while the accidental fire was the proximate cause, of plaintiff's loss; and it is authoritatively settled, as we shall show, that the law does not look beyond the proximate cause. In Lewis v. F. & P. M. Ry. Co., 54 Mich. 55, 19 N.W. 744, 52 Am. Rep. 790, plaintiff, a passenger on defendant's railway, was wrongfully carried past his station, and, on leaving the train, was misinformed as to his location. He soon discovered his whereabouts and started home. He knew the neighborhood, and the location of certain cattle guards and culverts; but he was deceived by his eyes, his foot slipped, and he fell into a culvert, and was seriously injured. It was held that this injury was not a proximate result of defendant's wrong. In deciding the case, the court said (page 66, 54 Mich., page 749, 19 N. W. 52 Am. Rep. 790): 'If lightning had chanced to strike the plaintiff at that place, the fault of the defendant, and its relation to the injury, would have been the same as now, and the injury could have been charged to the defendant with precisely the same reason as now. If the accidental discharge of a gun in the hands of some third person had wounded the plaintiff as he approached the cattle guard, the connection of defendant's wrong with the injury would have been precisely the same which appears here. But the proximate cause of injury in one case would have been the act of God in the other, inevitable accident, but not more plainly accident than was the proximate cause here. Back of that cause in this case were many others, all conducing to bring the plaintiff to the place of the danger and the injury. The act of the defendant was the last of a long sequence, but, as between the causes which precede the proximate cause, the law cannot select one, rather than any other, as that to which the final consequence shall be attributed, and it stops at the proximate cause, because to go back of it would be to enter upon an investigation which would be both endless and useless.' No argument is necessary to prove that the principle applied in the foregoing case applies to the case at bar. See, also, Michigan Central R. R. Co. v. Burrows, 33 Mich. 6; Morrison v. Davis, 20 Pa. 171, 57 Am. Dec. 695; Denny v. N.Y. C. R. R. Co., 13 Gray, 481, 74 Am. Dec. 645; Hoadley v. Northern Transportation Co., 115 Mass. 304. 15 Am. Rep. 106; Railroad Co. v. Reeves, 10 Wall. 176, 19 L.Ed. 909; Daniels v. Ballantine, 23 Ohio St. 532, 13 Am. Rep. 264; and Ashe v. De Rosett, 50 N.C. 299, 72 Am. Dec. 552. The last is a case almost precisely like that at bar.

It is true that in this case the property was lost while it was still...