96 Tenn. 35 | Tenn. | 1896
This is an action for damages growing out of a fire upon premises belonging to plaintiffs, Miller and wife, but occupied by Anderson, and by Grantland as lessee or tenant under Anderson. The cause was tried before the Court and jury, and judgment rendered for plaintiffs for $1,700, and defendants have appealed and assigned errors.
It appears that Anderson and Mrs. Miller owned adjoining stores, or business houses, in Nashville, the buildings being only a few inches apart, the roofs coming down together, and being drained by the same gutter. In August, 1891, Anderson, being pressed for room in his building, rented Mrs. Miller’s building, or a part of it, from her agent,
A separate count admits the rightful possession of
In regard to the proper parties to the action, ■ we do not think the assignment well taken. If it be conceded that the insurance company, ■ having paid the entire fire loss, is now entitled to be subrogated to the rights of the insured as against the tort feasor, or to recover back from him the amount he recovers, still it does not prevent a recovery in the name of the insured for the damage sustained. The question of who will be entitled to the proceeds of the recovery, the insurer or the insured, is a mat
In Perrott v. Shearer, 17 Mich., p. 48, the defendant, a Sheriff, wrongfully levied on goods, the property of the plaintiff, assignee. The assignee had insured said goods, and they were destroyed while in possession of defendant, Sheriff. In an action to recover the value of the goods, the defendant pleaded that the plaintiff had been paid value of same by insurance company. Cooley, Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, and said: £iHe, the defendant, is found to be a wrongdoer in seizing the goods., and he cannot relieve himself from responsibility to account for their full value, except by restoring them. He has no concern with any contract the plaintiff may have with any other party in regard to the
Clark v. Wilson, 103 Mass., 219, was an action for wrongful conversion of a boat. Plaintiff had received from insurance company full value of vessel, but sued the defendant for conversion. It was pleaded that plaintiff had received from insurance company full value of the vessel, and that therefore the right of action, if any, was in the insurance company. The Court said: “The result is that, allowing to the abandonment made by the plaintiffs and the recovery and payment of a total loss, the full effect, for which the defendant contends, of an abandonment by an absolute owner and payment of a total loss to him, that did not defeat the right to bring an action at law in the .name of the plaintiffs for the tort previously committed against them. The question whether the damages recovered will belong to them or to the insurers is a question in which the defendant has no interest, and which is not now in issue.” Clark v. Wilson, 103 Mass., p. 227.
Webber v. Morris & Essex Railroad Co., 35 New Jersey Law, was an action of insured against railroad company for the benefit of insurance company, the
In Mason v. Sainsbury, reported in 3 Douglass, 61, suit was brought on the riot act, to recover damages for the demolition of a house in the riots of 1780. The property having been insured in a fire office, which paid the loss, the action was in the name of the insured, and for the benefit of the insurance office. Lord Mansfield held that payment by the insurer was not in ease of the hundred, and not as co-obligors, and that the case must be considered as if not a farthing had been paid. ‘‘ He likened it to the case of abandonment in marine insurance, where the insurer is constantly put in tlj^ place of the insured.”
Chief Justice Abbott, in citing the case of Mason v. Sainsbury in Clark v. The Inhabitants of the Hundred of Blything, 2 Barn. & Cress., 254, says he could not entertain any doubt of its propriety, and he held that, where the owner of certain stacks of hay and corn, which were maliciously set on fire, received the amount of his loss from the insurance office, he might, nevertheless, maintain his action against the hundred.
In Yates v. Whyte, 4 Bing. N. R., 272, which
These cases are referred to, and their authority recognized, by Chief Justice Shaw in Hart v. The Western Railroad Co., 13 Met., 99; and in the Monmouth Fire Insurance Co. v. Hutchinson, 6 C. E. Green, 107, this rule is said to he settled. Webber v. Morris & Essex Railroad Co., 35 N. J. Law., p. 413.
Hayward v. Cain, 105 Mass., 213, was an action by insured against the defendant for maliciously setting fire to plaintiff’s building. The plaintiff received the amount of damages from the insurance company. The Court said: “The transaction between the insurers and the owners of the property injured were matters in which the wrongdoer had no concern, and which do not affect the measure of his liability. ’ ’
In regard to the measure of damages, the charge of the Court was correct in directing the jury that it would be the reasonable cost of restoring the property to its former condition. This does not mean, as argued by counsel, that it was the cost •of a new building, the same as that destroyed, and the jury could not have so understood it, but the proper construction was that the building, as re
The only other question material to be considered is whether the act of the defendants in storing the cotton in the house was the proximate cause of the loss, and whether the charge of the Court upon this point was misleading or not. It is insisted that the proximate cause was the fire which originated on Anderson’s ■ premises, and, no negligence of defendants being shown in connection therewith, defendants would not be liable. On the other hand, it is insisted that this fire would not have communicated to plaintiff’s house but for the cotton stored therein, and hence this storage was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s loss, and not the fire originating elsewhere. The definitions of proximate cause are easily given in general terms, but they are very difficult in practical application to the facts of each particular case. There is, however, a marked distinction between the proximate cause of an accident and , the proximate cause of the injury resulting from the accident. This is illustrated in the ease of Deming v. The Cotton Compress Co., 6 Pickle, 353, in which the Court said: “It is true the fire destroyed the cot
In Railroad v. Kelly, 7 Pickle, goods were consumed by fire which was not the result of defendant’s negligence, but the goods would never have become exposed to the fire but for the negligent failure and refusal to deliver the goods on demand previous to the fire, so that, while the fire caused the loss, the failure to deliver caused the injury.
In Postal Tel. Co. v. Zopfi, 9 Pickle, 374, the same distinction is illustrated where the fall of a young girl was caused by the slippery condition of a walkway, but the injury proximately resulted from the telegraph company negligently leaving its pole where she fell upon it, and received an injury which would not have resulted but for the presence of the pole, even though she had fallen. In that cause a hypothetical case is put to further illustrate the distinction . of a person falling upon an ice-covered pavement into an open cellar. In such case the ice is the cause of the fall, but the open cellar may cause an injury which, but for it, would not have occurred. This case collates many authorities recog
With this distinction in view, the question of liability of defendants- is easily solved. The jury were properly instructed in regard to Anderson’s lights under his rental agreement; that if he rented the premises with the understanding that he might store cotton in them, or such storage was a reasonably safe use of the premises, attended with no more danger than the purposes to which he intended to put them, then the defendants would not be liable, but if the storing of cotton was a more dangerous use than the storing of vehicles, for which he rented the premises, or if he occupied the premises without authority for any purpose, then he would be liable for the injury which resulted. The jury evidently found this' contention unfavorably to-Mr. Anderson, and the record justifies and warrants such finding.
The only question remaining is, did this unauthorized storage of cotton on the premises proximately cause the injury? The Court instructed the jury that “if they found the fire was not communicated to plaintiff’s house by the cotton, but that the inflammable nature thereof prevented the firemen from being able to extinguish the fire, and that iti could have been extinguished but for the presence of this cotton, with little or no damage to the property, then the plaintiffs are entitled to recover
In connection with this he further said: “If you find that the cotton was the proximate cause of the burning of the plaintiff’s house, in being the means without which the fire would never have been communicated to plaintiff’s house, then plaintiff can recover. On the other hand, if you find that the cotton did not, in the first instance, communicate the fire to plaintiff’s building, and that it was not the proximate cause of the burning of the house, and if you further find that it did not operate as the efficient cause which prevented the firemen from extinguishing the fire in time to save the building, but simply intensified the flame and smoke of the burning building, or if you find that substantially the same damage would have resulted to plaintiff’s property, even though there had been no cotton stored therein, then plaintiff cannot recover for any damage to the building on account of said fire. So, if the fire accidentally originated in the adjacent building, and this accidental fire was the proximate cause of the injury to plaintiff’s building, then plaintiff cannot recover therefor. By proximate cause, as used in the foregoing instructions to you, and as elsewhere used in this charge, is meant the efficient controlling event or act that produced the injury, the act or event which, without any intervening cause, brought about the injury complained of.”
Here the wrong consisted, and the injury resulted from the storage (unauthorized) of inflammable material, when it was liable to be reached by a fire, no matter when or how originating in adjoining-premises, and which would have been harmless to this building but for the unauthorized presence of this inflammable material. The principle would have been the same if benzine, naphtha, gunpowder, or other easily inflammable or combustible material had been stored, without permission, where it could be reached by a fire which would not have communicated with other less inflammable material, or could have been more easily controlled or prevented.
The Court charged the jury that the ‘rights of Mr. Grantland were to be measured by those of Anderson, because it was through him that he occupied the premises. This is correct, and the jury no doubt understood that his liability, as well as his right, was commensurate with that of Anderson, so far as plaintiffs were concerned. Although Mr.
We find no reversible error in the record, and the judgment of the Court below is affirmed, with costs.