50 FEDERAL BEPOME1:.
, operating jointly with the fit, it was nevertheless held essential to
show that the fit was a cause in the sense of being the immediate
cause of death, in order to exonerate the company.
Schafer v. Railroad Cc., supra, only has application here by way
of analogy. In that case a passenger on a railway car was injured
by a collision of trains, and, becoming thereby disordered in mind
and body, he, some eight months thereafter, committed suicide. It
was held, in a suit by his personal representatives against the rail-
way company, that his own act was the proximate cause of his death,
and that, therefore, there could be no recovery.
Although it may be said that Crandal would not have committed
suicide had he not been insane, and so that the insanitywas a pro-
moting cause of death, upon the reasoning and authority of the cases
referred to, the conclusion seems unavoidable that the act of self·de-
struction must be regarded, within the meaning of the policy, as the
true and proximate cause of his death. Quite against my first im-
pressions when the case was submitted, I am constrained to hold,
upon deliberate consideration, that the plaintiff? is entitled to recover.
If I am wrong in my conclusions, it is a gratification to know that
the case is one that may be taken to the supreme court for its judg-
ment, and in which the error, if error has been committed, may be
there corrected.
Judgment for plaintiff on the verdict.
Bmxs & Bees. v.Wns·r Punmsume Co. and another.'
(Orircuit Court, D. Jwnnesota. April, 1886.)`
l 1. COPYRIGHT—RIGHT or Sure IN Orrmons or Junems.
Whether a state, by virtue of the common law, has, or by the copyright acts
of congress can acquire, aniy property right in the opinions of the judges of
its supreme court, discusse , but not decided.
2. SAME—REPORTS or Junrorru. OPINIONS—WHAT Pnormcran.
It is in accordance with sound public policy, in a commonwealth where
every person is presumed to know the law, to regard the authoritative expo-
sitions of the law by the regularly constituted judicial tribunals as public
property, to be published freely by any one who may choose to publish them,
and such publication may be of everything which is the work of the judges.
The copyright of the volume does not interfere with such free publication, as
it protects only the work of the reporter.
8. SAME- Pusmcsrron or Iowa Dmorsrons-—S·rA·ru·rms AND Cournaor CoN-
sraunn.
The Iowa statutes of 1873 and 1880, and the contract made with complain-
ant under the authority of the act of 1880, construed, and held that the opin-
ions of the judges of the supreme court of that state are free to all; that the
copyright to be obtained for the benefit of the state was intended to protect
only the completed volumes; and that no right of complainant is violated b
the publication of the opinions by another publisher in advance of the ethyl
cial reports.
I Reported by Robertson Howard, Esq., of the St. Paul bar.