Court Opinion

ID: 9418808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:40:02.800432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:10.964242
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stone,
dissenting.
I think the judgment should be affirmed.
If “ participation ” means cooperation in the transportar tion, more than is involved in presence on the transporting vehicle with the knowledge that an explosive is being carried, I can perceive no ground for saying that there was participation here. That deceased had made the journey to deliver the caps and, as a “business invitee,” had a right to return on the vehicle on which he had placed it, seems to me as irrelevant as though the deceased had embarked as a passenger on a railroad train on which the explosion occurred after he or his firm had shipped dynamite upon it. By the terms of the policy, participation, to exclude liability, must be at the time of the injury. After the return journey began, deceased did nothing to facilitate the transportation. He neither controlled nor had the right to cor rol it. He was merely present. The distinction drawn between this case and that of mere presence, so difficult of statement and application, appears to me to obscure rather than to,define the meaning of the term and to violate the cardinal principle .that, so far as their language reasonably admits, insurance contracts are to be interpreted most favorably to the insured.