Travellers' Insurance Company v. Seaver/Opinion of the Court

by Samuel Freeman Miller

United States Supreme Court

86 U.S. 531

Travellers' Insurance Company  v.  Seaver

The statutes of Vermont make all horse-racing for any bet or wager a misdemeanor, and impose a fine not exceeding $500 for the offence.

In regard to this branch of the defence the court instructed the jury that they were to regard the trotting race, in which the insured was engaged when he jumped from the sulky and was killed, as a breach of the law within the meaning of the clause of the policy on that subject. As the plaintiff below took no exception to this ruling and had a verdict, no error can be assigned on it here, and we need not further examine the argument of her counsel, which controverts that proposition.

The court further instructed the jury on this branch of the subject, as follows:

'That if the jury should find that Seaver was killed by the race itself, by an ordinary accident of the race, so that the race was the proximate cause of the death, the plaintiff could not recover; but if the jury should find that Gilmore turned his horse in intentionally and tortiously, with the purpose of winning the race at all hazards, whether he should crowd Seaver from the track or not, then that the conduct of Gilmore and not the race would be the proximate cause of the death, and the plaintiff would be entitled to recover.

'That the plaintiff's evidence showed that Gilmore, turning in as he did, was in violation of the rules of the race; that a man was usually to be taken as intending the natural and necessary consequences of his own acts. And that if the jury were of opinion that Gilmore drove, as he did, tortiously, and with the intention of winning the race in any event, even though in his so doing he should crowd Seaver from the track and upset him, and that such driving caused the death of Seaver, then the jury should find for the plaintiff.'

In regard to this the plaintiff in error contends that no evidence was given tending to show that Gilmore intentionally and tortiously turned his horse, with the purpose of winning the race at all hazards, whether he should crowd Seaver from the track or not. All that the bill of exceptions discloses on this point is, that Seaver, having the inside track, his mare broke and fell back a little; 'that Gilmore thereupon reined in towards the inside of the track, apparently to get the inside track, his team being then about half its length ahead of Seaver's mare; that Seaver's mare at that moment regained her speed, and, gaining on the other horse, the sulkies came into collision.'

We think this a very slender foundation to put to the jury the question of Gilmore's tortious intention to drive Seaver from the track at all hazards, and to rest upon that possible secret intention the proposition that the race was not the proximate cause of the death, but that Gilmore's act was. It was well calculated to mislead, and no doubt did mislead, the jury. If the legal proposition was sound, the state of the testimony, as given in the bill of exceptions, on which it was founded, could hardly justify it. It would have been much nearer sound principle to have said to the jury that if Seaver saw that Gilmore was ahead of him ever so little, his persistence in so running his horse as to bring about a collision was wilfully exposing himself to danger within the meaning of the policy.

But we are of opinion that if the testimony raised the point the instruction was erroneous. The company in protecting themselves against accident or death caused by a violation of law, acted upon a wise and prudent estimate of the dangers to the person generally connected with such violations. And in the class of cases under consideration we have no question that the sum of money often at stake stimulates to further acts of carelessness in the way of violence, fraud, and a disregard of the rules of fair racing, which increase largely the dangers always attendant on that sport. The class of men who collect on such occasions, and who often become the leading parties in the conduct of the affair when large sums of money are wagered, have led to its denunciation by many wise and thoughtful people, and very surely adds to the risk of personal injury to the rider or driver. It was against this general species of danger, attending nearly all infractions of the law, that the company sought to protect itself by the clause of the policy in question, and of this class was the reckless driving of Gilmore. If his intentions were as bad as the instructions imply, they did not take the case out of the protection of the clause.

If Seaver had died the moment he was thrown from the sulky, his death would have been caused by a violation of the law, though Gilmore may have disregarded the rules of the course, and may have intentionally sought to run Seaver off the track.

The jury, in response to a request to find specially on certain points, did, in addition to a general verdict in favor of the plaintiff, make the following special finding:

'And the jury further find, that when the sulky of Seaver came into collision with the sulky of Gilmore, Seaver jumped to the ground and was entirely clear from the sulky, harness, and reins, upright and uninjured, and spoke to his horse to stop, and then started forward to get hold of the lines to stop him, and in that attempt was killed.'

It is said that this verdict is conclusive that the death of the deceased was not caused by the violation of the law in trotting for a wager, but by his own voluntary act when he was not trotting; and both parties appeal to the case of Insurance Company v. Tweed, ^[1] where it is said that when a new force or cause of the injury intervenes between the original cause and the accident, the former is the proximate cause.

But we do not think this new force or cause is sufficiently made out by this verdict. The leap from the sulky and securing the reins, and the subsequent fall and injury to Seaver are so close and immediate in their relation to his racing, and all so manifestly part of one continuous transaction, that we cannot, as this finding presents it, say there was a new and controlling influence to which the disaster should be attributed. If he had been landed safely from his sulky and, after being assured of his position, had, with full knowledge of what he was doing, gone to catch the animal, his death in that pursuit when the race was lost might have been too remote to bring the case within the exception.

But as the finding presents it, we cannot say that the accident was not caused by the race which was itself a violation of the law, and which might still have gone on had he caught his mare in time.

And we are to consider that both this special finding and the general verdict were probably influenced by the erroneous instruction we have already considered, and by that we are now about to mention.

The jury were told that if the death of the insured was caused by the wilful exposure of himself to an unnecessary danger or peril within the meaning of the other clause in the policy relied on by the defendants, the plaintiff would not be entitled to recover. The court added:

'Upon this part of the case, it was to be considered, however, that the language of this clause must be taken most strongly against the defendant, because used in their policy, and for the purpose of inducing parties to take policies.

'It was also further to be considered how ordinary people in the part of the country where the insured resided, in view of the state of things then existing, the frequency of such races, and the way in which such matches are usually regulated, would naturally understand such language, whether as precluding such driving or not.

'The jury should also consider the nature of the business of the insured, as set forth in the application, and, therefore, known to the defendant, that of a livery-stable keeper, which of course embraced the management and driving of horses.

'That the question was not what construction would be given to the language at Hartford, where the defendant's company is located, but, in view of all the circumstances and conditions above alluded to, whether intelligent, fairminded people in the vicinity of the insured where the contract was made, would regard it as excluding the driving of such a race, and, if not, that the case would not come within the proviso of that clause in the policy, and the plaintiff would, so far as that is concerned, be entitled to recover.'

We are of opinion that the language of this policy is to be construed by the court, so far as it involved matters of law, and by the jury aided by the court when it involved law and fact, and that in neither view of it was the opinion of ordinary people in view of the state of things where the deceased resided, or their understanding of its language in view of the circumstances of the case, any sound criterion by which the judgment of the jury should be formed, and the instruction in this branch of the case was unwarranted and misleading.

The Jury should have been left to decide for themselves, under all the facts before them attending the death of the insured, whether it was caused by his wilful exposure to an unnecessary danger or peril. Such light as the court as a matter of law could give them, on the subject of the wilfulness of his conduct, or the presence or absence of any necessity or the character of the necessity which would justify him, might be proper, but this general reference to what ordinary people in a particular locality might think about it, was clearly not so.

For the errors here considered, the JUDGMENT IS REVERSED, with direction to

GRANT A NEW TRIAL.

Notes

1. 7 Wallace, 44.