United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Orient Ins. Co. v. Adams, 123 U.S. 67 (1887)

Orient Insurance Company v. Adams

Argued April 13, 1887

Decided October 24, 1887

123 U.S. 67

Syllabus

In the absence of fraud or design, misconduct on the part of the master of a vessel covered by a policy of insurance will not defeat a recovery on the policy when the proximate cause of the loss is a peril covered by it.

A provision in a policy of insurance of a steam vessel that the insurer shall not be liable for losses occasioned by "the derangement or breaking of the engine or machinery or any consequences resulting therefrom" relates to losses of which the derangement or breaking is the proximate cause, and not to such as are a remote consequence of either.

The abandonment of a vessel for total loss, made in good faith at a time when it was in reasonable probability impracticable to recover and repair it, and when the damage from the perils insured against amounted in like probability to more than fifty percent of the value, is a valid abandonment within the terms of a policy which provides that there shall be "no abandonment as for a total loss" unless the injury sustained be equivalent to fifty percent of the agreed value, although by a

Page 123 U. S. 68

change of circumstances it afterwards became practicable to float off the vessel, and thereby the loss was reduced below fifty percent of that value.

This was an action to recover on a policy of marine insurance. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant sued out this writ of error. The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.