Dow v. Hope Insurance

1 Hall 166
CourtThe Superior Court of New York City
DecidedOctober 15, 1828
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 1 Hall 166 (Dow v. Hope Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering The Superior Court of New York City primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dow v. Hope Insurance, 1 Hall 166 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1828).

Opinion

Jones, C. J.,

after stating the facts of the case.

The question in this case is, whether the policy attached upon the goods for the return voyage or not: and the solution of that question turns upon the construction to be given to the term “ proceeds.” The grammatical sense of the term is the substituted cargo, or property, whatever it may be, which results from, or is acquired by means, of the specified goods. It imports a sale, barter, or other disposition of the outward cargo, or some operation therewith, by which, or by the future investment of the moneys or funds derived therefrom, other goods or insurable property are obtained, on which the policy is to attach for the return voyage. It does not necessarily follow, that the operation is to be effected by a sale or absolute disposition of the goods: the term, [172]*172by a just and liberal construction, will fairly embrace any insurable interest, which the outward cargo, by any arrangement, enables the assured to procure for the return voyage. On that principle the Supreme Judicial Court of the state of Massachusetts, in the case of Havens v. Gray, [12 Mass. 71.] where the insurance was upon a specified cargo outwards, and the proceeds of that cargo homewards, held, that a return cargo procured by money and credit advanced upon the outward cargo by a factor, with whom the goods were left for sale on the owner’s account, was covered by the policy. The court in that case repelled the narrow construction of the term contended for there by the defendant’s counsel, and held, that the intention of the parties was to insure the returns of the outward cargo for the homeward voyage, and whether the return cargo was procured by the sale or exchange of the outward cargo, or by a credit raised upon the deposit of it, could make no difference to the insurers. Indeed, in a liberal sense of the term, the goods purchased by an advance or loan, on the deposit of the outward cargo, are truly the proceeds of such outward cargo ; for without that cargo, those goods could not probably have been procured.

The same principles governed the case of Whitney v. The American Insurance Company, in the Supreme Court of this state. (3 Cowen, 210.) There the insurance was on wine from Madeira to Calcutta, and on proceeds back; and a return cargo was purchased with money raised by a deposit of the wines. The court held, that the returns were the proceeds of the outward cargo, because the money could not be otherwise raised than by the deposit. And on the same principle, goods purchased by a loan effected on the security of the outward cargo, would be the proceeds or returns of the outward cargo, within the meaning of the contract, and the policy would attach upon them. These cases, and others, arose upon valued policies. The outward cargo had come to a dull market; no sale could be made, except at a ruinous sacrifice; and the advances of the consignees with whom they were deposited for sale, though to nearly the market value, were not sufficient to purchase a return cargo of equal value with the outward loading. And the complaint of the insurers was, [173]*173that the assured was allowed to apply the valuation to a reduced cargo, which was intended to be applicable to one of equal value with that which was sent out. Hence the struggle they made was, to confine the meaning of the term employed in the contract to the proceeds of the sale, or the absolute disposal of the outward loading. But the courts in both cases held them hound by the terms of the contract to the valuation on the return cargo, as well as the outward, however inferior in value the returns might be ; requiring only of the assured, that the whole market value of the outward cargo at the port of destination should, as nearly as practicable, be invested in such returns. In framing the contract now under consideration, the parties manifestly had the policies in these cases, or one of them, in their eye; and this policy has taken them for its model. But to guard against the consequence of the valuation in the form used in those cases, the insurers have provided in their policy, that the valuation shall be restricted to the outward cargo, and that the insurance shall he upon the actual interest on board'on the homeward voyage. This was a prudent precaution, and an improvement on the former policies. In all other respects the clause is the same in substance with those which were the subjects of the adjudication in the cases of Havens v. Gray, and Whitney v. The American Insurance Company. It follows that the rules of construction applied to those policies are applicable to this. And it is contended, that the liberal principles advanced in those cases entitle the plaintiff" to recover in this case. I cannot deduce from either of those decisions any rule broad enough to embrace the case of an outward cargo brought back as it was originally shipped, Avithout having been changed or examined at the port of destination. The court, in the case of Havens v. Gray, in the course of their opinion, do say it is true, that the intention of the parties, by the clause in question, was to have insurance upon property on board out and home, and that the premium was taken with that -vícav. But the whole contract demonstrates the meaning of that part of then* opinion to be, that the property to which the court referred as the return cargo, was to be the produce of the outward loading, or goods purchased Avith advances or loans upon it. There is no [174]*174intimation, in any part of the opinion, which encourages the extended construction now contended for, or gives the least countenance to the idea, that the identical goods themselves, composing the outward cargo in the precise state of the original ship- * ment, can in any possible sense of the term be the proceeds of those goods. On the contrary, the court appear to me very clearly to discountenance, if not wholly exclude, such an exposition; for they say that the memorandum means nothing more, in their apprehension, than that the underwriters took the risk homeward of any property, which might be substituted for that which was carried out. Can the sense which that court attached to the term be misunderstood 1 It was a substitute for the cargo earned out, and not the outward cargo itself, which was to compose the homeward cargo; and to my apprehension, such is the clear and obvious meaning of the policy. The parties both contemplated a change of cargo at the port of destination, and the manifest intention was, that the policy for the voyage home should attach on a new or substituted cargo, and not upon that, which was carried out. The term they have used, is the most appropriate, perhaps, that the language furnishes to express that sense and to define it with accuracy and precision. It so necessarily implies that the returns, to use an apt legal phrase, should be issues of the specified articles that no other meaning can be attached to it. As well might the talent, which the unfaithful servant hid in the earth, and kept unemployed until his master’s return, be called the proceeds or produce of that talent, as the identical goods carried out in the primitive state be termed the proceeds of those goods: they are obviously not the proceeds or the produce of the thing, but the thing itself. It is true, that a policy is a contract of indemnity, and such construction is to be given to the words employed in it, as will make the protection it affords co-extensive if possible, with the risks of the assured, during the voyage for which the premium is paid.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1 Hall 166, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dow-v-hope-insurance-nysuperctnyc-1828.