32 S.C.L. 525 | S.C. Ct. App. | 1847
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action is novel in the instance, but that is no objection
it has however, been urged hero again, as it was on the circuit, that admitting every thing which the plaintiff has alleged, he has presented either a case of damage without legal injury, or a case of injury without legal damage.
First. Damage without injury. It is said, that the act of selling or giving whiskey to the slave, Bob, was not in itself a wrong to the plaintiff, but was only a violation of a penal statute, which has imposed upon such acts penalties, to be recovered by indictment; and that, therefore, no action by the plaintiff lies, nor any remedy buttheindictment prescribed by the statute.
The wrong, for which an action of trespass on the case lies, may be either an unlawful act, or a lawful act done under circumstances which render it wrongful—any act done or omitted, contrary to the general obligation of the law, or the particular rights and duties of the parties. It might not bo difficult to distinguish between the selling, or giving of spirituous liquor to a slave, and the fair selling to a slave of an article, which could not be expected to produce harm; and to show that, independent of any express statutory prohibition, the former act is so contrary to the rights of the master, and to the duties imposed upon other persons in a slave-holding community, that the person who does it without special matter of excuse, subjects himself to liability for all the legal damage, that may thence ensue; in like manner, as if he had carelessly or wantonly placed noxious food within the reach of domestic animals. But this case may be rested where the plaintiff left it. Our statutes, time after time, have subjected him, who sells to a slave any article without license, to fine and imprisonment upon his conviction after indictment; and the last statute on the subject provides especially, for the punishment, upon conviction after indictment, of him, who sells or gives spirituous liquor to a slave. No express prohibition is contained in either of the statutes, but the penalties necessarily imply a prohibition, and make the
Second. We come then to the main ground assumed in the defence—that no legal damage followed the injury, but that which was shown was too remote—not such a consequence of the injury as the law will notice.
It would be vain to attempt to define w'ith precision, the terms which have been used on this subject, or to lay down any general rules, by which consequences that shall be answered for, and those which arc too remote for consideration, may be always distinguished. But we will endeavor, without dwelling on particulur cases, to deduce from the general course of decision on this point, so much as may show that the instructions given, were sufficiently favorable for the defendant, and that verdict is conformable to law.
We are troubled here with no distinctions between loss sustained and gain prevented; nor with any between cases, which have been aggravated by evil motive, and those which have not been: for the plahitiff here has claimed only compensation for his actual loss; and the defendant may be regard^ as the jury were instructed to regard him—that is, as one who, with no particular evil purpose, or ill-will towards master or slave, has violated the law only for his own gain.
A distinction, however, is to be observed between cases where the damage ensues, whilst the injurious act is continued in operation and force, and those where the damage follows, after the act has ceased. In the former class, were the cases of Wright & Gray, (2 Bay. 464,) and all the cases which have been cited, or supposed, of slaves put without permission of the owners on racc-horscs, in steam-boats, or on rail-roads—those of property injured during a deviation from the course which was prescribed concerning it, (6 Bing., 716;) and in general all,
X Every incident will, when carefully examined, be found to be the result of combined causes, and to be itself one of various causes which produce other events. Accident or design may disturb the ordinary action of causes, and produce unlooked for results. It is easy to imagine some act of trivial misconduct or slight negligence, which shall do no direct harm, but set in motion some second agent that shall move a third, and so on, until the most diastrous consequences shall ensue. The ijrst wrongdoer, unfortunate rather than seriously blamcable, cannot X be made answerable for all of these consequences. He shall, *" “not answer for those, which the party grieved has contributed by his own blameable negligence or wrong, to produce, or for any which such party, by proper diligence, might have pre-ventedJJ (Com. Dig. action on the case, 134; 11 East., 60; 2 Taunt., 314; 7 Pick., 284.) But this is a very insufficient restriction; outside of it would often be found a long chain of consequence upon consequence. Only the proximate consequence shall be answered for. (2 Greenleaf Ev., 210, and cases there cited.) The difficulty is to determine what shall come within this designation. The next consequence only is not meant, whether we intend thereby the direct and immediate result of the injurious act, or the first consequence of that result. What either of these would be pronounced to be, would often depend upon the power of the microscope, with which we should regard the affair. Various cases shew that in search of the proximate consequences, the chain has been
It has been supposed, in argument, that without any of these distinctions, it is always sufficient, to inquire only, whether the consequences have certainly proceeded from the injurious act: but it will be seen, that in settling what have certainly proceeded from the act, we will be obliged to determine what are natural and proximate, unless we mean to run to absurd extremes.
In the case before us, the defendant has insisted, that the damage resulted, not so much from his act, as from the acts of the slave, who was a moral being, and a free agent. (4 M’Cord,
The defendant, however, has further insisted, that if the drinking and intoxication were the proximate and natural consequences of his act, the exposure and death were not: but that the death resulted mainly from the exposure, and not from the intoxication only. It may well be said, (speaking in the language of every day life, which attempls no philosophical analysis,) that the exposure was the immediate effect of the intoxication, and that the two produced the death. Thus, without any unconnected influence to be perceived, the death has come from the intoxication, which the defendant’s act occasioned. The defendant cannot complain that an agent, which his own act naturally brought into operation, has occurred to produce the result. The proximity in order of events, and intimacy of relation as cause and effect, between the injurious act and the damage, are as great here as in various cases which have been cited. (17 Pick. 78; 3 Scott New R., 386; 17 Wend. 71; 9 Wend. 325; 11 East, 571; find the cases before cited.)
The jury have decided the facts, and this Court is of opinion that under the inferences, which must be drawn from the finding, the verdict is free from the objection, that the damages were too remote.
The instructions concerning a delivery to Bass, as an instrument of Bob, are approved.
The motion is dismissed.