Thе foregoing statement of the case will suffice as a general outline of the issues presented and the questions here for determination. As the result of the fire of December 12, 1914, the Steele-Smith Building, which was adjacent to the Hann Building, in which plaintiff’s goods were located, was destroyed, and a large portion of the west wall fell immediately as a result of that fire, but the east wall thereof, which was next to the Hann Building, remained standing until April 21, 1915, when it fell over onto the Hann Building, completely demolishing the same.
It is insisted by counsel for appellant that the insurance company was exempted from liability in this case by the following provisions of the policy:
“If a building, or any part thereof, falls, except as a result of fire, all insurance by this policy on such building, or its contents, shall immediately ceasе.”
It is further insisted that the evidence was insufficient for submission to the jury of the question as to whether or not the fire of December 12, 1914, was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s loss, and that the affirmative charge as requested was therefore due the defendant. This is the question of prime importance on this appeal, and will be hero first considered.
It is to be observed also that there is no distinction to be made by the cause of the loss under the language of the policy, where what is insured against is described as “all direct loss or damage by fire,” and the causation as it exists in the law of negligence. Speaking to this question, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in Lynn Gas, etc., Co. v. Meriden F. I. Co.,
“On principle, and by the weight of authority in many well-considered oases we think it clear that, apart from the single exception above stated, the question, What is a cause which creates a liability? is to be determined in the same way in actions on policies of fire insurance as in other actions.”
The exception referred to is without any bearing upon this case, and need nоt be here considered. The opinion in that case also points out that the direct and proximate cause does not mean that the cause or agency which is nearest in time or place to the result is necessarily to be chosen, concluding this thought in the following language:
“The active efficient cause that sets in motion a train of events which brings about a result without the intervention of any force started, and working actively from a. new and independent source, is the direct and proximate cause referred to in the cases.”
The opinion in that ease (Lynn Gas, etc., Co. v. Meriden F. I. Co., supra) concludes as follows:
“In the present case, the electricity was one of the forces of nature, a passive agent working under natural laws, whose existenсe was known when the insurance policies were issued. Upon the theory adopted by the jury, the fire worked through agencies in the building, the atmosphere, the metallic machinery, electricity, and other things; and, working precisely as the defendants would have expected it to work if they had thoroughly understood the situation and the laws applicable to the existing conditions, it put a great strаin on the machinery and did great damage. No new cause acting from an independent source intervened. The fire was the direct and proximate cause of the damage according to the meaning of the words ‘direct and proximate cause,’ as interpreted by the best authorities.”
In Home Telephone Co. v. Fields,
“If the original wrong becomes injurious only in consequence of some distinct wrongful act or omission by another, the injury shall be imputed to the last wrong. But, if the original act was wrongful, and would naturally, according; to the ordinary course of еvents, prove injurious to some other person, and does actually result in injury, through the intervention of causes which are not wrongful, the injury shall be referred to the wrongful cause. If damage has resulted directly from concurrent, wrongful acts of two persons, each of these may be counted on as the proximate cause and the parlies held responsible jointly or severally for the injury.”
An intеresting discussion of proximate cause is found in Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Callaghan,
“In considering these questions it must also be borne in mind that the proximate cause is not always nor generally the act or omission nearest in time or place to the effеct it produces. In the sequence of events there are often many remote or incidental causes nearer in point of time and place to the effect than the moving cause, and yet subordinate to and often themselves influenced, if not produced, by it. Thus a defect in the construction of a boiler of an engine may long exist without harm, and yet finally be the proximate cаuse of an explosion, to which the negligence of an engineer, the climate, and many other incidental causes nearer by years to the effect may contribute. Gases illustrating this proposition are Railroad Co. v. Kellogg,94 U. S. 469 [24 L. Ed. 256 ]; Ins. Co. v. Boon,95 U. S. 117 , 130; Lynch v. Nurdin, 1 Q. B. 29; Illidge v. Goodwin, 5 Car. & P. 190-192; Clark v. Chambers, 3 Q. B. Div. 327; Pastene v. Adams,49 Cal. 87 . Again, an effect is usually the result of many causes, some proximate, others remote. The rule by which the former аre to be separated from the latter is admitted by all to be difficult of application, and the best that can be done is to carefully apply it to the circumstances of each case as it arises. * * * The independent intervening cause that will prevent a recovery on account of the act or omission of a wrongdoer must be a cause which interrupts the natural sequence of events, turns aside their course, prevents the natural and probable result of the original act or omission, and produces a different result, that could not have been, reasonably anticipated.”
In discussing this question of proximate cause, the court in Railroad Co. v. Kellogg,
“The true rule is that what is the proximate cause of an injury is ordinarily a question for the jury. It is not a question оf science or of legal knowledge. * * * In the nature of things, there is in every transaction a succession of events, more or less dependent upon those preceding, and it is the province of a jury to look at this succession of events or facts, and ascertain whether they are naturally' and probably connected with each other by a continuous sequence or arе dissevered by new and independent agencies, and this must be determined in view of the circumstances existing at the time.”
“Whatever may have been the original meaning of the maxim, ‘Causa próxima et non remota sрectator,’ it has been clearly settled by a long line of decisions that what is meant by proximate cause is not that which is last in time or place, not merely that which was in activity at the consummation of the injury, but that which is the procuring, efficient, and predominant cause. * * * ‘The proximate cause of an injury, within the meaning of the law of negligence, is such cause as operates to produce particular consequences without the intervention of any independent or unforeseen cause or event, without which the injury could not have occurred, such consequences as might reasonably have been anticipated as likely to occur from the alleged negligent act.’ Proximate cause has also been defined as being that from which the effect might rеasonably be expected to follow, without the concurrence of any unforeseen circumstances. * * * In discussing the liability to misapply the maxim, Mr. Phillips (Phillips, Ins. § 1182) observes: ‘In case of the concurrence of different causes, to one of which it is necessary to attribute the loss, it is to be attributed' to the efficient predominating peril, whether it is or is not in activity at the consummation of the disаster.’ Again: ‘In every insurance, the risk on each peril is liable to be affected by every other peril; and the party, whether insurer or assured, at whose risk a peril is, must bear the loss by such peril, though it may have been indirectly and incidentally enhanced by another, for which he is not answerable, where there is no express or implied stipulation, obligation, or condition against the subject being exposed to such other peril. * * * The inquiry must always be whether there was any intermediate cause disconnected from the primary fault, and self-supporting, which produced the injury. * * * Applying these principles, it is evident that the contract must be considered from the standpoint of the parties at the time of its -execution, in the light of the surrounding circumstances. The risk as defined by the policy covered whatever causes produced the result. The inquiry resolves itself to determining whether or not the wind was an incident in the chain of events, or the primary cause. If, at the time the contract was entered into, windstorms of the character which arose on the night of December 13th, were liable to occur at any time, then the parties contracted with reference to such a pоssibility. If they could reasonably have foreseen that a fire might leave the wall, 69 feet high and 157 feet long, exposed to winds likely to occur, and that such a wind might blow it down, then such contingency was an element in the risk. The mere fact that the wall stood for the period of several days is not important, provided the wall was not subjected to such a test as occurred on the seventh day. The samе inquiry now calling for solution would present itself had the wind come up one, two, or three days after the 13th. The question is not, alone, how much was the standing wall weakened by the fire? but, rather, did the fire leave the wall in such an exposed condition that the wind produced an effect which would not have been produced except for the fire? s: * * xn all probability the wall would have stood until the building was reconstructed, had it not been for the wind which came at a critical time. Although the later agency in the work of destruction, was 'it the real cause of the damage? The wind was not the cause, if it was an intervening agency which could reasonably have been foreseen. It could not reasonably have been foreseen if it was an improbable event, not likely to occur. Winds, such as arose December 20th, were liable to occur at any season of the year. It certainly does not conclusively appear from the evidence that such an event should not have been contemplated by the parties when they entered into the contract. It was at least a question of fact.”
We are persuaded that the logic of the Russell Case, from which the above quotations are taken, is sound, and we are convinced that the difference in the lapse of time between the fall of the wall in the instant case and in the Russell Case is not sufficient to take the case from without the influence of the principle there announced, and that the court properly submitted to the jury for determination the question as to whether or not the fire of December 12, 1914, was the proximate cause of the loss. The jury was authorized to so find from the evidence that the fire of December 12th, was in fact the proximate cause of the loss, and that the wind was but an intervening agency which could reasonably have been foreseen or anticipated, but an incident in the chain of events. Nor are we convinced to a contrary conсlusion from an examination of the authorities cited by counsel for appellant, among them. Cuesta v. Royal Ins. Co.,
The question at issue in the case of Ogburn-Griffin Gro. Co. v. Orient Ins. Co.,
The questions raised by pleas 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, which are sufficiently disclosed by a reference to the statement of the case, and need not be here repeаted, were considered by this court in the recent case of Ætna Ins. Co. v. Hann,
We have here considered the questions on this appeal which we deem of sufficient importance to call for separate treatment. The few remaining questions — not here discussed —have been carefully reviewed, and we find nothing in them calling for a reversal of the cause. It results therefore that the judgment of the court below will be affirmed.
Affirmed.