Case Name: William A. Sale and another, plaintiffs and respondents, vs. The Suit Mutual Insurance Company, defendants and appellants
Court: New York Superior Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1866
Citations: 3 Rob. 602
Docket Number: 
Parties: William A. Sale and another, plaintiffs and respondents, vs. The Suit Mutual Insurance Company, defendants and appellants.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases argued and determined in the Superior Court of the city of New York
Volume: 26
Pages: 602–612

Head Matter:
William A. Sale and another, plaintiffs and respondents, vs. The Suit Mutual Insurance Company, defendants and appellants.
The loss of a part of an assured’s portion of a cargo insured in a valued policy, which cargo is partly lost by' perils insured against, and the residue is brought to the port of destination, is partial, and not total, with benefit of salvage, notwithstanding only part of the portion so belonging to the insured is capable of being identified by any marks. So held in a case where the assured notified the underwriters of his intention not to abandon his interest in the cargo, and the damage to the part saved from the perils insured against had been adjusted as a partial loss. Monell, J. dissented..
(Before Monell, Garvin and Jones, JJ.)
Heard February, 1866;
decided-, 1866.
This was an appeal from a judgment upon a verdict against the defendants, in an action upon a valued policy of insurance, for a loss of cotton shipped on board of a brig (Trade Wind) at Matamoras, bound for New York. Of 265 bales of cotton composing the cargo, 166 belonged to the plaintiffs. The remainder were the property óf other consignees. All of the bales were marked. The brig, on her voyage, went ashore and filled with water, and part of the cargo of cotton was lost. What was saved was carried to Beaufort, N. 0., arid from that place, by an arrangement between the parties, agreed to be brought to New York, without prejudice to the rights of the plaintiffs, by an agent dispatched for the purpose. Some (203) whole bales, some (40) parts of bales, and some (77) bags of the cotton were brought to New York. The quantity so brought on was sold at auction, by the defendants. After a careful examination, the plaintiffs could only identify as theirs, by the marks of that brought on and sold, some (41) bales. Others (27) were identified by their marks as belonging to three other consignees.
The loss upon the bales so identified as those of the plaintiffs was then adjusted as partial. The plaintiffs claimed . similar adjustment of the loss upon the rest of the bales shipped by them, (125.) The defendants contended, that the loss should be adjusted as total, with salvage. All the cotton shipped was uniform in quality. It weighed nearly 128,000 pounds, and its total value in New York, at the market price at that place, (65 cents per pound,) was over $83,000. The sales in New York netted only about $76,800. Before the arrival in New York, of the cotton, the plaintiffs had resolved not to abandon their share of it, of which they gave the defendants notice. After deducting the weight of water absorbed by, and sand gathered upon, the bales and cotton, (62,713 lbs.) there remained of damaged cotton, in New York, over about 113,000 pounds, leaving nearly 14,500 pounds to be accounted for, as having been sold with the hull of the vessel, or otherwise lost. The average weight of cotton, per bale, was 480 pounds. The identified cotton brought to New York weighed over 33,250 pounds, leaving the weight of unidentified cotton above 94,600 pounds. The defendants paid the plaintiffs $40,204.93, on account of their insurance of such cotton.
The issues in this action were tried Before Justice Barbour and a jury.
The defendants’ counsel, among other requests, requested the justice to instruct the jury :
1. That the loss incurred upon the unidentified residue of the plaintiffs’ cotton, as well that which was sold in New York as that which was sold with the wreck, must be adjusted upon the principle of a salvage loss, by deducting from the valuation thereof, at the rate named in the policy, the portion of the net proceeds thereof which were set apart and appropriated to the plaintiffs, upon the apportionment. Eor one third of which difference, and no more, the defendants are liable. 2. That as respects so much of the cotton as was confused with the cotton of other shippers, and unidentified by any ear mark, there being no means of determining either its actual condition when sold, or its damaged or sound value, every element necessary for the adjustment of the loss as a particular average loss being wanting, it can only be adjusted as a salvage loss. 3. That in view of the circumstances under which the unidentified cotton was brought from the place of the wreck to New York and sold, the loss thereon is to be adjusted in the same manner and upon the same principles as if the whole of it had been sold at the place of the disaster—that is to say, as a salvage loss. 4. That the preliminary proofs presented by the plaintiffs to the defendants afforded no means for the computation of the loss as a particular average loss, as they gave neither the sound nor the damaged value of any portion of the plaintiffs’ cotton, except as to the plaintiffs’ 41 identified bales. They were therefore insufficient to form the basis of any action or recovery other than upon the theory of a salvage loss. 5. That the burden, in this case, is on the plaintiffs to make proof of their alleged partial loss, by furnishing evidence of the sound and damaged value of the very cotton covered by the policy, and having failed to do this, they can recover in this action more than the amount of the loss adjusted as a total loss, with salvage as it is proved.
The judge refused to charge any of such propositions, and the defendants excepted to each and every of such refusals.
The jury rendered a verdict for the amount claimed by the plaintiffs, and the defendants appealed.
J. H. Choate, for the appellants, (defendants.)
T. Scudder, for the respondents, (plaintiffs.)

Opinion:
Garvin, J.
In this case there was no abandonment; nor was there sufficient evidence to establish a legal transfer of the remnants of the cargo to the underwriters. What evidence there was to that effect was very slight, and abundantly refuted by other facts in the case. No such pretense was made by the defendants, and express notice to the contrary was given to them by the plaintiffs. It may be assumed that the underwriters had no title to the cotton saved, whoever else had. It had been expressly agreed that the sending of the .agent for the cotton, and bringing it to New York, should be without prejudice to the plaintiffs. There being no .abandonment before it arrived at the port of destination, the plaintiffs could not afterwards abandon it for damages. There is no pretense of any other way in which the plaintiffs could have parted with, or lost the title to, their property. It must therefore be assumed, that the consignees were the owners of all the cotton which came from the wreck of the brig. As between the different consignees, if there had been no insurance upon the cotton, and it had arrived in the precise condition in which the cargo was landed at this port, there could have been no question as to their interest in the unidentified part. Each consignee and owner would have been entitled to his proportion of the proceeds of a sale of it, had it taken place; and exclusive possession and refusal to deliver upon demand, or. the assertion of exclusive dominion, by one con signee as against the other, would have been a good cause of action by the latter, against the former. In such an action by these plaintiffs it would have been no defense to have insisted upon inability to identify the property claimed. For at most not more than thirty bales were physically lost with the wreck ; so that at least ninety five bales of the plaintiffs' cotton, among the identified cotton, must have been saved. The cotton itself was of a uniform quality. The plaintiffs,, therefore, not only had an interest in, but were the owners of, some portion of the cotton which arrived, which was undistinguishable from the rest. It is quite clear that a large portion of the cotton of the plaintiffs reached New York, although 125 bales could ,not be identified as the original • bales. It was in proof, as matter of fact, that all the cotton shipped was brought to New York, except about thirty bales. The mere facts of insurance and loss of marks and numbers upon the bales could not therefore affect the title to the property, as between the defendants and the assured, in the slightest degree. If the plaintiffs had, with the consent of all parties, taken possession of their aliquot portion of the cotton saved, although with marks and numbers erased, that would have taken the place of their cotton, for all purposes, including that of their ownership; he sacking, size and weight of bales of cotton being of course the same. But instead of. that course being adopted, a sale was made by the defendants, of the cotton in mass, requiring the rights of she parties now to be fixed by a distribution of the proceeds. It cannot be contended that there was either a physical destruction, or one in contemplation of law, of the cotton, any more than it can be assumed that no part of the cotton of the plaintiffs came, as such, to the port of destination. The only pretense for such a supposition is the fact that the marks and numbers upon a portion of the bales were destroyed. If this reasoning be sound, and loss of marks as a means of identification, destroys ownership, it would be equally so, although the plaintiffs had been the only consignees and the cotton had arrived at the port of destination with the same loss of marks. Loss of identity is a peril insured against by the policy; otherwise the existence of the marks and numbers would form a part of the subject matter of insurance.
The accidental mingling of grain of the same quality, consigned to different owners, without damage, cannot be said to be a total loss at the port .of destination. How can the loss of identity by reason of a peril be a destruction, in any sense, of an article in specie ? And how can there be a total loss without abandonment, if the thing insured still exist in specie ? An insurance on goods is a contract to indemnify the insured only for any loss he may sustain by his goods being prevented by the perils of the seas from arriving in safety at their port of destination. (2 Arnould on Ins. § 1119.)
But it is said the plaintiffs must identity their cotton, or the damage to it cannot be determined.. In answer to this, it may be said, that we have already seen that, upon the proofs, a very large part of the 125 bales belonging to the plaintiffs, in fact arrived, and that the plaintiffs would have had the right to have taken their aliquot portion of the rest of the cotton. This would be equally true, if every bale, had been broken, and the cotton reduced to one confused mass, although no part of it had been actually physically lost. In other words, if the cotton had all been unbaled, and thrown into a confused mass, and so brought to the port of destination, each consignee would have had aright to take his aliquot part; being only accountable in case he invaded the quantity which belonged to the other consignees. (Kimberly v. Patchin, 19 N. Y. Rep. 330.) There is no difference between such a case and the one under consideration. Evidence of the amount of injury to the value can always be got at by averaging the different degrees of damage among the cotton, when it is of a uniform quality; and such damage may always he determined by a comparison of the proceeds of the sale with the sound values. Here loss of evidence, or difficulty of determination of the amount of damage, cannot alter rights. It may create difficulty for a jury to determine the facts, but cannot change the law.
The rule of adjustment adopted by the jury was, therefore, correct. This was a case of partial and not of total loss, with salvage.
The exceptions taken by the defendants must be overruled, and the judgment affirmed, with costs.
Jones, J., concurred.