Joseph Story

“ If there be any commercial contract which, more than any other, requires the application of sound common sense and practical reasoning in the exposition of it, and in the uniformity of the application of rules to it, it is certainly a policy of insurance; for it deals with the business and interests of common men, who are unused to deal with abstractions and refined distinctions. Take the case of a jettison at sea, to avoid a peril insured against. It is a voluntary sacrifice, and may be caused by the perils of the sea ”

“ The case of a penalty, put by the learned judge, does not strike us with the same force as it does his lordship. If any nation should be so regardless of the principles of natural justice, as to declare that a vessel driven on shore by a storm should be forfeited because its revenue laws were thereby violated; it would then deserve consideration whether the underwriters would not be liable for the loss, as an inevitable incident to the shipwreck. At all events, the point is too doubtful in itself to justify us in adopting it as the basis of any reasoning in the present case. ”

“ The argument is, that in the law of insurance, which governs the present contract, it is a settled rule that underwriters are liable only for losses arising from the proximate cause of the loss, and not for losses arising from a remote cause, not immediately connected with the peril. ”