491 CARDOZO, J., dissenting. Ins. Co., 111 N.J.L. 426; 168 Atl. 593, collating the decisions. Violent it is for the same reason, and external because the train of consequences is set in motion by the rays of the sun beating down upon the body, a cause operating from without. "In my view this man died from an accident. What killed him was a heat-stroke coming suddenly and unexpectedly upon him while at work. Such a stroke is an unusual effect of a known cause, often, no doubt, threatened, but generally averted by precautions which experience, in this instance, had not taught. It was an unlooked for mishap in the course of his employment. In common language, it was a case of accidental death." Per Loreburn, L. C., in Ismay, Imrie & Co. v. Williamson, supra. 3. The attempted distinction between accidental results and accidental means will plunge this branch of the law into a Serbonian Bog. "Probably it is true to say that in the strictest sense and dealing with the region of physical nature there is no such thing as an accident." Halsbury, L. C. in Brintons v. Turvey, L.R. [1905] A.C. 230, 233. Cf. Lewis v. Ocean Accident & Guaranty Corp., 224 N.Y. 18, 21; 120 N.E. 56; Innes v. Kynoch, [1919] A.C. 765, 775. On the other hand, the average man is convinced that there is, and so certainly is the man who takes out a policy of accident insurance. It is his reading of the policy that is to be accepted as our guide, with the help of the established rule that ambiguities and uncertainties are to be resolved against the company. Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Hurni Packing Co., 263 U.S. 167, 174; Stipcich v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 277 U.S. 311, 322. The proposed distinction will not survive the application of that test. When a man has died in such a way that his death is spoken of as an accident, he has died because of an accident, and hence by accidental means. So courts of high authority have held. Lower v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., CARDOZO, J., dissenting. 291 U.S. supra (a case of sunstroke); Gallagher v. Fidelity & Casualty Co., 163 App. Div. 556; 148 N.Y.S. 1016; 221 N.Y. 664; 117 N.E. 1067 (sunstroke); Jensma v. Sun Life Assurance Co., 64 F. (2d) 457; Western Commercial Travelers' Assn. v. Smith, 85 Fed. 401; Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Dodge, 11 F. (2d) 486; Lewis v. Iowa State Traveling Men's Assn., 248 Fed. 602.1 So the holder of this policy might reasonably assume. If he had thought about the subject, he might have had his impressions fortified by the ruling of the House of Lords that a workman who suffers a heat-stroke has a claim for relief under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Ismay, Imrie & Co. v. Williamson, supra. The British Act (6 Edw. 7, c. 58, § 1) gives compensation for personal injury "by accident" arising out of and in the course of the employment. Injury by heat-stroke was held to be injury "by accident." The result would hardly have been different, certainly one insured would not have looked for any difference, if for the phrase "injury by accident" the lawmakers had substituted the words injury "by means of accident," or injury by accidental means. The principle that should govern the interpretation of the policy in suit was stated with clarity and precision by Sanborn, J., in a case quoted in the margin.2 The insured did not do anything which in its ordinary consequences was fraught with danger. The allegations 'The decisions are collated in 17 A.L.R. 1197, with the comment that by the weight of authority sunstroke suffered unexpectedly is within the coverage of a policy insuring against injury by external, violent and accidental means. Compare Continental Casualty Co. v. Bruden, 178 Ark. 683; 11 S.W. (2d) 493; Higgins v. Midland Casualty Co., 281 Ill. 431; 118 N.E. 11; Elsey v. Fidelity & Casualty Co., 187 Ind. 447; 120 N.E. 42; Continental Casualty Co. v. Clark, 70 Okla. 187; 173 Pac. 453; Bryant v. Continental Casualty Co., 107 Tex. 582; 182 S.W. 673; Richards v. Standard Accident Ins. Co., 58 Utah 622; 200 Pac. 1017. 491 CARDOZO, J., dissenting. of the complaint show that he was playing golf in the same conditions in which he had often played before. The heat was not extraordinary; the exertion not unusual. By misadventure or accident, an external force which had hitherto been beneficent, was transformed into a force of violence, as much so as a stroke of lightning. The opinion of the court concedes that death "from sunstroke, when resulting from voluntary exposure to the sun's rays," is "an accident." Why? To be sure the death is not intentional, but that does not make it an "accident" as the word is commonly understood, any more than death from indigestion or pneumonia. If there was no accident in the means, there was none in the result, for the two were inseparable. No cause that reasonably can be styled an accident intervened between them. The process of causation was unbroken from exposure up to death. There was an accident throughout, or there was no accident at all. The judgment should be reversed. "Western Commercial Travelers' Assn. v. Smith, supra, p. 405: "An effect which is the natural and probable consequence of an act or course of action is not an accident, nor is it produced by accidental means. It is either the result of actual design, or it falls under the maxim that every man must be held to intend the natural and probable consequence of his deeds. On the other hand, an effect which is not the natural or probable consequence of the means which produced it, an effect which does not ordinarily follow and cannot be reasonably anticipated from the use of those means, an effect which the actor did not intend to produce and which he cannot be charged with the design of producing under the maxim to which we have adverted, is produed by accidental means. It is produced by means which were neither designed nor calculated to cause it. Such an effect is not the result of design, cannot be reasonably anticipated, is unexpected, and is produced by an unusual combination of fortuitous circumstances; in other words, it is produced by accidental means." The principle thus formulated has been accepted in many of the decisions cited in footnote 1, supra. Syllabus. 291 U.S. NEBBIA v. NEW YORK. APPEAL FROM THE COUNTY COURT OF MONROE COUNTY, NEW YORK. No. 531. Argued December 4, 5, 1933. Decided March 5, 1934. 1. As a basis for attacking a discriminatory regulation of prices, under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the party complaining must show that he himself is adversely affected by it. P. 520. 2. A regulation fixing the price at which storekeepers may buy milk from milk dealers, at a higher figure than that allowed dealers in buying from producers, and allowing dealers a higher price than it allows storekeepers in sales to consumers, held consistent with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because of the distinctions between the two classes of merchants. P. 521. 3. As part of a plan to remedy evils in the milk industry which reduced the income of the producer below cost of production and threatened to deprive the community of an assured supply of milk, a New York statute sought to prevent destructive price-cutting by stores which, under the peculiar circumstances, were able to buy at much lower prices than the larger distributors and to sell without incurring delivery costs; and, to that end, an order of a state board acting under the statute fixed a minimum price of ten cents per quart for sales by distributors to consumers and of nine cents per quart for sales by stores to consumers. Held that, as applied to a storekeeper, the regulation could not be adjudged in conflict with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since, in view of the facts set forth in the opinion, it appeared not to be unreasonable or arbitrary or without relation to the purpose of the legislation. Pp. 530 et seq. 4. The use of private property and the making of private contracts are, as a general rule, free from governmental interference; but they are subject to public regulation when the public need requires. P. 523. 5. The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment conditions the exertion of regulatory power by requiring that the end shall be accomplished by methods consistent with due process, that the regulation shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious, and that the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be attained. P. 525. 6. It results that a regulation valid for one sort of business, or in given circumstances, may be invalid for another sort, or for the same business under other circumstances, because the reasonableness of each regulation depends upon the relevant facts. P. 525. 7. The power of a State to regulate business in the public interest extends to the control and regulation of prices for which commodities may be sold, where price regulation is a reasonable and appropriate means of rectifying the evil calling for the regulation. Pp. 531 et seq. 8. There is no principle limiting price regulation to businesses which are public utilities, or which have a monopoly or enjoy a public grant or franchise. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113. P. 531. 9. To say that property is "clothed with a public interest," or an industry is "affected with a public interest," means that the property or the industry, for adequate reason, is subject to control for the public good. Pp. 531-536. 10. There is no closed class or category of businesses affected with a public interest; and the function of courts in the application of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is to determine in each case whether circumstances vindicate the challenged regulation as a reasonable exertion of governmental authority or condemn it as arbitrary or discriminatory. P. 536. 66 11. Decisions denying the power to control prices in businesses found not to be "affected with a public interest or clothed with a public use" must rest finally upon the basis that the requirements of due process were not met because the laws were found arbitrary in their operation and effect. P. 536. 12. So far as the requirement of due process is concerned, and in the absence of other constitutional restriction, a State is free to adopt whatever economic policy may reasonably be deemed to promote ⚫ public welfare, and to enforce that policy by legislation adapted to its purpose. The courts are without authority either to declare such policy, or, when it is declared by the legislature, to override it. If the laws passed are seen to have a reasonable relation to a proper legislative purpose, and are neither arbitrary nor discriminatory, the requirements of due process are satisfied, and judicial determination to that effect renders a court functus officio. P. 537. 13. The legislature is primarily the judge of the necessity of such an enactment; every possible presumption is in favor of its validity, and though the court may think the enactment unwise, it may not be annulled unless palpably in excess of legislative power. P. 537. |