There is no right to damages where there is no wrong. It is not necessary that there should be a tort, strictly so called,—a wilful wrong, an act involving moral guilt. The wrong may be either a wilful, malicious in jury, as in the case of assault and battery, libel, and the like, or one committed through mere motives of interest, as in many cases of conversion of goods, trespasses on land, etc.; or it may consist in a mere neglect to discharge a duty with suitable skill or fidel ity, as where a surgeon is held liable for malpractice, a sheriff for the escape of his prisoner, or a carrier for the neglect to de liver goods; or a simple breach of contract, as in case of refusal to deliver goods sold, or to perform services under an agreement ; or it may be a wrong of another person for whose act or default a legal liability exists, as where a master is held liable for an in jury done by his servant or apprentice, or a railroad company for an accident result ing from the negligence of its engineer. But there must be something which the law rec ognizes as a wrong, some breach of a legal duty, some violation of a legal right, some default or neglect, some failure in responsi bility, sustained by the party claiming dam ages. For the sufferer by accident or by the innocent or rightful acts of another cannot claim indemnity for his misfortune. It is called damnurn, absque injwria,—a loss with out a wrong, for which the law gives no rem edy; Pollock, Torts 22, 175; Bartholomew v. Bentley, 15 Ohio 659, 45 Am. Dec. 596 ; 11 M. & W. 755 ; Howland v. Vincent, 10 Mete. (Mass.) 371, 43 Am. Dec. 442; Losee v. Buchanan, 51 N. Y. 476, 10 Am. Rep. 623 ; Marshall v. Welwood, 38 N.. J. L. 339, 20 Am. Rep. 394 ; Brown v. Collins, 53 N. H. 442, 16 Am. Rep. 372; Chase v. Silverstone, 62 Me. 175, 16 Am. Rep. 419 ; Trustees, etc., of Village of Delhi v. Youmans, 50 Barb. (N. Y.) 316; Baltimore & P. R. Co. v. ReaneY, 42 Md. 119; Shipley v. Fifty Associates, Mass. 194, 8 Am. Rep. 318 ; L. R. 3 H. L. 330; Egan v. Hart, 45 La. Ann. 1358, 14 South. 244; Booth v. R. Co., 140 N. Y. 267, 35 N. E. 592, 24 L. R. A. 105, 37 Am. St. Rep. 552.
See DAMNUM AnsQuE INsuarA.
The obligation violated must also be one owed to the plaintiff. The neglect of a duty, which the plaintiff had no legal right to enforce, gives no claim to damages, though perhaps it is better said, gives no right of action. Thus where a postmaster was re quired by law to advertise in the newspaper in his city having the largest circulation; and chose another newspaper, it was merely a breach of a duty he owed to the public and not to the owner of the newspaper having the largest circulation ; Strong v. Campbell,
11 Barb. (N. Y.) 135.
Whether when the law gives judgment on a contract to pay money—e. g. on a promis sory note—this is to be regarded as enforc ing performance of the promise, or as ing damages for the breach of it, is a ques tion on which jurisconsults have differed. Regarded in the latter point of view, the de fault of payment is the wrong on which the award of damages is predicated.
The loss must be the natural and proxi mate consequence of the wrong ; 2 Greenl. Ev. § 256 ; 2 Sedgw. Dam. 362; Field, Dam. 42 ; Hale, Dam. 4. Smith v. Bolles, 132 U. S. 125, 10 Sup. Ct. 39, 33 L. Ed. 279. Or, as others have expressed the idea, it must be the "direct and necessary," or "legal and nat ural," consequence. It must not be "remote" or "consequential." Th6 loss must be the natural consequente. Every man is expected —and may justly be—to foresee the usual and natural consequences of his acts, and for these he may Justly be held accountable ; but not for consequences that could not have been foreseen; Dickinson v. Boyle, 17 Pick. (Mass.) 78, 28 Am. Dec. 281; Donnell v. Jones, 13 Ala. 490, 48 Am. Dec. 59; Vedder v. Hildreth, 2 Wis. 427; Walker & Langford v. Ellis & Moore, 1 Sneed (Tenn.) 515; Young v. Tustiti, 4 Blackf. (Ind.) 277 ; 6 Q. B. 928; Fritts v. R. Co., 62 Conn. 503, 26 Atl. 347; Swain v. Schieffelin, 134 Y: 471, 31 N. E. 1025, 18 L. R. A. 685: See Malone v. R. R., 152 Pa. 390, 394, 25 Atl. 638; Taylor Mfg. Co. v. Hatcher Mfg. Co., 39 Fed. 440, '3 L. B. A. 587. It must also be the proximate con sequence. Vague and 'indefinite results, re mote and consequential, and thus uncertain, are not embraced' in the compensation given by damages. It cannot be certainly known that they are attributable to the wrong, or whether they are not rather connected with other causes ; Hatchell T. Kimbrough, 49 N. C. 163 ; 1 Sm. L. Cas. 302. See Engelsdorf v. Sire, 64 Hun 209, 18 N. Y. Supp. 907; Brooke v. Bank, 69 Hun 202, 23 N. Y. Supp. 802.
In cases of tort the rule has beep thus stated : "The question is not what cause was nearest ih time or place to the catas trophe. This is not the meaning of the maxim causa proxima non remota spectatur. The proximate cause is the efficient cause, the one that sets the other causes in opera tion. The causes that are merely incidental, or instruments of a superior or controlling I agency, are not the proximate causes, the responsible ones, though they may be nearer in time to the result. It is only when the causes are 'independent of each other that the nearest is, of course, to be charged with the disaster ;" /Etna Insurance Co., v. Boon, 95 U. S. 117, 24 L. Ed. 39n. See CAUSA Psox