Case Name: Jones and another, Appellants, vs. Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company, Respondent
Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 1910-11-15
Citations: 144 Wis. 66
Docket Number: 
Parties: Jones and another, Appellants, vs. Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports
Volume: 144
Pages: 66–68

Head Matter:
Jones and another, Appellants, vs. Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company, Respondent.
October 29 —
November 15, 1910.
Insurance: Plate glass: Exception of loss “resulting directly or indirectly from fire.”
1. A contractual negation of liability for damage caused directly or indirectly by a specified element presents a different -question from that presented in an investigation concerning tbe legal or proximate cause of an injury.
2. A provision in an insurance policy that tbe insurer shall not be liable for any loss or damage resulting directly or indirectly from fire includes all damage of which fire is a proximate cause or a principal cause or a link in the chain of causation or an indirect cause or any cause which the law would recognize as such.
3. Where plate glass was insured under a policy containing the above provision and an incendiary fire in a distant building containing dynamite caused the dynamite to explode and the concussion of this explosion broke the glass, the breakage resulted directly or indirectly from the fire and the insurer is not liable.
Appeal from a judgment of the circuit court for Vilas county: A. H. Reid, ' Circuit Judge.
Affirmed.
Eor the appellants the cause was submitted on the brief of Smart, Van Doren & Ciurtis.
They cited, among other authorities, Thurston v. Burnett & B. D. F. Mut. F. Ins. Go. 98 Wis. 476, 74 N. W. 131; Balcalars v. Continental C. Go. 141 Wis. 43, 122 N. W. 721; Wausau T. Co. v. United Firemen's Ins. Go. 123 Wis. 535, 101 N. W. 1100.
For the respondent the cause was submitted on the brief of Albert S. Larson.
He cited, besides other cases, Gary v. Preferred Acc. Ins. Go. 127 Wis. 67, 106 N. W. 1055; Winchel v. Goodyear, 126 Wis. 271, 105 N. W. 824; Kellogg v. G. & N. W. B. Co. 26 Wis. 223; O’Gonnor v. Queen Ins. Go. 140 Wis. 388, 122 N. W. 1038, 1122; Karow v. Oontinental Ins. Co. 57 Wis. 56, 62, 15 N. W. 27; Merrill v. Travelers’ Ins. Co. 91 Wis. 329, 64 1ST. W. 1039; McQuillan v. Mutual B. F. L. Asso. 112 Wis. 665, 87 ET. W. 1069, 88 ET. W. 925 ' Milwaukee C. Asso. v. King, F. & M. Co. 112 Wis. 647, 88 ET. W. 598; Murphey v. Weil, 92 Wis. 467, 66 ET. W. 532; Fulton v. Stevens, 99 Wis. 307, 74 ET. W. 803; Wis. M- & F. Ins. Co. Bank v. Mann, 100 Wis. 596, 76 ET. W. 777; Johnson v. Pugh, 110 Wis. 167, 85 ET. W. 641; Hart v. Hart, 117 Wis. 639, 94 ET. W. 890; Monte v. Wausau P, M. Co. 132 Wis. 205, 210, 111 ET. W. 1114.

Opinion:
Timlin, J.
By a "plate glass policy" tlie appellants were insured against loss by breakage of glass (in described premises) tbe result of accident and due to canses beyond tbe control of insured. Tbe policy further provided: "This company is not liable for any loss or damage resulting directly or indirectly from fire, whether on tbe premises above described or not." A warehouse about 700 feet distant containing some dynamite was set on fire by a person unknown; tbe fire caused tbe dynamite to explode; tbe concussion of this explosion broke tbe glass. To a complaint setting forth these facts a demurrer was sustained and judgment given.for defendant.
All causes have behind them in tbe chain of causation other causes. Every event is tbe outcome or result of causes operating directly or indirectly in sequence or simultaneously to produce that event. In order to justly fix liability tbe law .endeavors to select in a practical way tbe legally responsible cause, which, without much regard to tbe literal meaning of tbe adjective word, we call tbe proximate cause. In some cases tbe proximate cause is very obvious; in others it requires great discrimination to discover and identify it. A negation of liability for damages caused directly or indirectly by a stated element presents for investigation quite a different question. If parties to a contract so provide, they have employed one of tbe most comprehensive expressions which the language affords to exclude the right to recover all damages caused by that element, whether proximately or not. There is in this case no question of a simultaneously concurring independent cause, and what is decided does not include that. In this case, in order to be within the obligation and without the exception of the policy, it must appear that the fire was not the proximate cause nor a principal cause nor a link in the chain of causation nor even an indirect cause, in short not a cause at all, of the breakage. Here the pleader shows that the breakage was caused directly or indirectly, it matters not which, by the fire.
By the Gourt. — Judgment affirmed1.