Thurston v. Burhett & Beaver Dam Farmers' Mutual Fire Insurance

Fires caused by the use of steam engines on the premises insured by the defendant, other than threshing .machine engines using coal as fuel, with sufficient wood to kindle or start the fire, were excepted out of and not covered by the contracts of insurance. Such excepted fires cannot be included by judicial construction or by the verdict of a jury, without reading into the contract language the parties dearly did not put there. Neither courts nor juries are permitted to do that. The meaning of the term “ coal as fuel, with sufficient wood to kindle or start the fire,” was the important…