and recover the sum paid out from the person who started the fire. "Behind the cloud of words is the fact they hide, that the act, wrongful as to the insured, has also harmed the company." An event may have many causes, Andrews noted, and only some may be deemed proximate. Liability for negligence may only be found where that proximate cause exists, a term that the judge admitted was inexact. He suggested the analogy of a river, made up of water from many sources, and by the time it wound to sea, fully intermixed. But for a time, after water from a muddy swamp or a clayey bed joins, its origin may be traced. Beyond a certain point, it cannot be traced, and such is proximate cause, "because of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point. This is not logic. It is practical politics." That point, beyond which there is no proximate cause, is drawn differently by different judges, and by different courts, Andrews explained. He listed factors that courts might consider, such as remoteness in time or space, and discussed some hypotheticals, such as a chauffeur who causes an accident, the noise of which startles a nursemaid into dropping a child, then returned to the case being decided, Given that, Andrews concluded, the jury verdict should be upheld. "Under these circumstances I cannot say as a matter of law that the plaintiff's injuries were not the proximate result of the negligence. That is all we have before us." Subsequent events Wood, Palsgraf's lawyer, moved the Court of Appeals to allow reargument of the case, alleging that Cardozo had confused the position of Palsgraf with that of her daughter Lillian (at the newsstand), and complained about the chief judge's use of such terms as "distant" and "far away". Wood warned that the decision could have far-reaching adverse effects on innocent passengers. The court denied the motion with a one-sentence statement likely written by Cardozo, "If we assume that the plaintiff was nearer the scene of the explosion than the prevailing opinion would suggest, she was not so near that injury from a falling package, not known to contain explosives, would be within the range of reasonable prevision." Costs of $559.60 were due from Palsgraf to the railroad under Cardozo's order. Posner doubted