Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/83216/insurance-company-vs-boon
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:17:24+00:00

Document:
The proximate cause, as we have seen, is the dominant cause, not the one which is incidental to that cause, its mere instrument, though the latter may be nearest in place and time to the loss. In Milwaukee & Saint Paul Railway Co. v. Kellogg, 94 U. S. 469 , we said, in considering what is the proximate and what the remote cause of an injury, "The inquiry must always be whether there was any intermediate cause disconnected from the primary fault, and self-operating, which produced the injury." In the present case, the burning of the city hall and the spread of the fire afterwards was not a new and independent cause of loss. On the contrary, it was an incident, a necessary incident and consequence, of the hostile rebel attack on the town -- a military necessity caused by the attack. It was one of a continuous chain of events brought into being by the usurped military power -- events so linked together as to form one continuous whole. The case is therefore clearly within the doctrine asserted by Emerigon, and held in Butler v. Wildman, and in the other cases we have cited. Hence it must be concluded that the fire which destroyed the plaintiffs' property took place by means of an invasion or military or usurped power, and that it was excepted from the risk undertaken by the insurers.
Where the finding is general, nothing is open to review here except such rulings of the court in the progress of the trial as are duly presented in a bill of exceptions, and, even when the finding is special, the reexamination can only extend to the question whether the facts found are sufficient to support the judgment. Propositions of fact found by the circuit court in such a case are equivalent to a special verdict, and, consequently, are irreviewable here except for the purpose of determining the single question whether they are sufficient to warrant the judgment; nor is the circuit court required to make a special finding, as the act of Congress provides that the finding of the circuit court may be either general or special, giving the circuit court the same power in that regard as has always been possessed by a jury. Insurance Company v. Folsom, 18 Wall. 237; 1 Archb.Pr. (2d Am. ed.) 213; Co.Litt. 228 b ; Litt., sec. 386; 3 Bl.Com. 378.
It is a settled principle, say the court, in Walton v. United States, 9 Wheat. 651, cited by defendants, that no bill of exceptions is valid which is not for matter excepted to at the trial. We do not mean to say, remarked the court in that case, that the bill of exceptions should be formally drawn and signed before the trial is at an end. It will be sufficient if the exception be taken at the trial and noted by the court with the requisite certainty, and, where that is done, it may be reduced to form, and be signed by the judge during the term. Stanton v. Embry, 93 U. S. 548 .
Authorities of the kind give no support whatever to the proposition of the defendants, in view of the facts of the case as they appear in the transcript. Judgment was rendered for the plaintiffs in the usual course, without any intimation from the court that any special finding would be filed in the case, or any request being made by the defendants for such a finding; and the record shows that the plaintiffs in the mean time had taken out execution for the amount of the judgment. Muller v. Ehlers, 91 U. S. 249 . Valid exceptions can never be allowed, unless taken at the trial; and they will never be sustained, unless completed within the term.
Execution had issued in this case before the court granted the order that a special finding should be made, signed, and entered of record, and, inasmuch as the term in which the judgment was rendered had then expired, it is clear that the court below had not at that time any power supply a special finding of facts. Noonan v. Bradley, 12 Wall. 121; Washington Bridge Co. v. Stewart, 3 How. 413; Skillin's Ex'rs v. May's Ex'rs, 6 Cranch 267; Ex parte Sibbald, 12 Pet. 488; Peck v. Sanderson, 18 How. 42; Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304; Roemer v. Simon, 91 U. S. 149 .

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