Chesney v. Lehigh Valley Coal Co.

12 Pa. D. & C. 722
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Northampton County
DecidedNovember 26, 1928
DocketNo. 454
StatusPublished

This text of 12 Pa. D. & C. 722 (Chesney v. Lehigh Valley Coal Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Northampton County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chesney v. Lehigh Valley Coal Co., 12 Pa. D. & C. 722 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1928).

Opinion

Per Curiam. —

This is an action of trespass instituted by the plaintiff to recover for damages to her realty and personalty caused by several overflows of Shamokin Creek. By agreement of counsel for the respective parties, the case was submitted to the court without a jury. The history of the case, the plaintiff’s allegations of negligence, the defendant’s ground of defense, the separate findings of fact and conclusions of law as stated by the court are all set out in the opinion heretofore filed, a reference to which is now made and need not now be here repeated. The question of defendant’s liability was resolved in favor of the plaintiff and damages awarded in the sum of $3081.48.

In view of the large number of like cases now before us, we invited, in our written opinion, counsel for the respective parties to raise all questions by their present exceptions, so that a final disposition thereof may be made and the future litigation simplified and expedited. That they have availed themselves of this invitation is evidenced by the fact that plaintiff has filed twenty exceptions, consisting of twenty-five paragraphs, and the defendant twenty-[723]*723five exceptions to the opinion of the court and our answers to their respective requests. It would thus appear that all questions likely to arise in the pending cases may now be determined and set at rest.

All of the plaintiff’s exceptions bear upon questions of damages and are susceptible of grouping into five distinct classes: Class 1, those exceptions— one to twelve, inclusive — relating to inadequate allowances or disallowances of damages for injuries to the personalty and realty; class 2, those exceptions — thirteen to sixteen, inclusive — relating to disallowances of compensation for delay in-payment; class 3, those exceptions — seventeen and twenty— relating to disallowance of compensation for inconvenience; class 4, eighteenth exception, for disallowance of interest from the date of injury; class 5, the nineteenth exception, for disallowance of punitive damages.

The defendant’s exceptions cover a wide range, embrace phases of the case not contemplated in plaintiff’s exceptions, and can be more intelligently disposed of when considered separately.

We shall, therefore, proceed to consider plaintiff’s exceptions. Speaking generally of exceptions in group one and with special reference to damages to personalty, it may be said that real value becomes the measure of damages, in cases such as the one before us, only when market value cannot be shown: Stauffer v. Miller Soap Co., 151 Pa. 330. But whatever measure be adopted, whether the real or market value, the amount of the damages is to be determined by the value of the injured article at the date of the injury — and this applies to growing crops: Taylor v. Canton Township, 30 Pa. Superior Ct. 305. In no event may damages be allowed for injuries to property unless value be shown, or such description of the injured article be given as will convey sufficient information upon which to base an intelligent estimate of value. And where damages are sought to be established by an opinion of value, an estimate in a lump sum without a specification of the items forming a basis for the estimate is not sufficient for that purpose: Adam Robb v. Carnegie Bros. & Co., 145 Pa. 324. In the present case the disallowances resulted, not from the application of the rule of market value as the measure of damages, but because the evidence, when viewed in the light of the foregoing observations, was insufficient to establish with any degree of certainty any satisfactory basis upon which to found a value as of the date of the injury.

This brings us to a consideration of the specific items of complaint.

Exceptions under class 1.

The second exception complains: “That the court erred in fixing the value of the garden truck on its own opinion, not supported by any evidence.”

Our allowance for this item was $10. The estimate of the plaintiff was based upon a lump sum and was fixed at $30. She could furnish* no details of the items of value making up her estimate, nor did the whole of her testimony furnish a satisfactory basis for estimating the value. Moreover, it was clear that her estimate was based upon the value of the truck when and if harvested and not as of the date of the injury. In making the original allowance, we felt that the plaintiff had sustained some loss upon this item and thus desired to adjust it on equitable grounds; but, inasmuch as the plaintiff objects to that method, it must now be determined upon the strict application of legal principles. The evidence viewed in this light requires us to now disallow the $10 heretofore allowed as not being sufficiently supported by the evidence.

The third and fourth exceptions: “That the court erred in not awarding damages for the loss of ornamental bushes, flowers or grape vine, and in not allowing for loss of grapes in the years 1920 to 1927, inclusive.”

[724]*724There was no evidence to establish the value of the grape vines. The plaintiff testified that the annual crop prior to 1919 was worth about $20. Although the vines were destroyed in July, 1919, before the crops came to maturity, we allowed her $20 for the grapes for that year. That was full compensation under the evidence. To make an annual allowance of that amount for the subsequent years would manifestly be unjust to the defendant, for the reason that the crops are too uncertain and speculative and because it would be an application of the wrong measure of damages, which is the value of the vines as they were at the date of injury in July, 1919, and as they then stood with a crop of immature grapes. It was for the plaintiff to produce satisfactory evidence of this value, and having failed in this respect, no allowance can be made.

As to the damages to ornamental bushes, the plaintiff in her direct examination fixed the values predicated by their cost at figures varying from $1 to $2.50 for each bush; but under cross-examination she testified that her husband bought the plants and that she did not know what they cost. It was thus established that the basis upon which she predicated her opinion lacks substance, and no allowance can be made.

Exception 5: “The court erred in allowing only! $10 for loss of garden truck in years 1920 to-1924, both inclusive. The evidence is that the garden was not productive until 1927.”

This exception is subject to the same observations as we made to exception No. 2, and for the reasons there givén, the $50 as originally allowed must now be disallowed and stricken off.

Exception 6: “The court erred in requiring the plaintiff to furnish names, addresses, descriptions of men and receipts for amount paid to each of the men, she having testified to the amount paid per day and the number of days.”

This exception complains of our disallowance of claims for moneys alleged to have been paid to several laborers for services rendered in cleaning up the debris after the several floods. In disallowing it, we said that she could furnish neither names, nor addresses, nor descriptions, nor receipts. By this we are not to be understood as meaning that all of these elements must be shown in order to sustain the claim, but what we do mean is that at least some of them should be presented. The damages must be proven like every other fact in the case, and to allow the present claim on the evidence as produced would be tantamount to saying that the mere statement of the claim is of itself sufficient to support it.

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Related

Stauffer v. Miller Soap Co.
25 A. 95 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1892)
Eshleman v. Martic Township
25 A. 178 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1892)
Lynch v. Troxell
56 A. 413 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1903)
Gift v. City of Reading
3 Pa. Super. 359 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1897)
Taylor v. Canton Township
30 Pa. Super. 305 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1906)
Robb v. Carnegie Bros.
22 A. 649 (Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas, 1891)
Lentz v. Carnegie Bros.
23 A. 219 (Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas, 1892)
Anderson v. Miller
31 L.R.A. 604 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1896)

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Bluebook (online)
12 Pa. D. & C. 722, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chesney-v-lehigh-valley-coal-co-pactcomplnortha-1928.