Howard Supply Co. v. Wells

176 F. 512, 100 C.C.A. 70, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 4272
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 8, 1910
DocketNo. 1,991
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 176 F. 512 (Howard Supply Co. v. Wells) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Howard Supply Co. v. Wells, 176 F. 512, 100 C.C.A. 70, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 4272 (6th Cir. 1910).

Opinion

KNAPPEN, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above). Upon the striking out of the allegations in question, the plaintiff's petition necessarily fell to the ground, as there remained in it no allegation of an injury even in fact resulting from defendants’ default. The general demurrer and the motion to strike out apparently rest upon the same grounds, and so may be considered together.

ft is defendants’ contention that the case presented involves only the question whether the plaintiff’s petition states a case permitting recovery for loss of profits anticipated upon the resale. This contention will be again referred to.

Before discussing the specific propositions on which the action of the court is sought to be justified, it may be well to refer briefly to the general principles covering the recovery of damages by the vendee on account of the vendor’s failure to make delivery. In such case, as in cases generally for breach of contract, the distinction between general and special damages is that the former are such damages as the law implies or presumes from the breach complained of, while the latter are such as have proximately resulted, but do not always immediately result, from the breach, and will not therefore be implied by law. Lawrence v. Porter, 63 Fed. 62, 11 C. C. A. 27, 26 L. R. A. 167: Lillard v. Kentucky Dist. & Warehouse Co., 134 Fed. 168, 177, 67 C. C. A. 74. In accordance with this distinction, the usual rule is that the measure of damages for failure to deliver goods under an ex-ecutory contract of sale is the difference between the contract price of the goods and their market value at the place of delivery at the time the contract was broken, and that, if the goods cannot be procured at the place of delivery, then resort must be had to the nearest available market. Lawrence v. Porter, supra; Grand Tower Co. v. Phillips, 23 Wall. 471, 23 L. Ed. 71. But profits which the vendee under an ex-ecutory contract of sale of goods has actually lost by reason of the vendor’s failure to deliver may be recovered as damages for such breach, provided, first, such loss of profits was the natural and prob[516]*516able consequence of the breach, and within the reasonable contemplation of the parties in the making of the contract as the damages likely to result from such breach; and provided, second, the proof of such damages is not uncertain, speculative, or indefinite.. Damages by way of loss of profits are not recoverable, even if within the contemplation of the parties, if so remote, uncertain, or speculative that they cannot be ascertained to a reasonable certainty. 2 Joyce on Damages, §§ 1285, 1672; Fell v. Newberry, 106 Mich. 542, 64 N. W. 474; Hitchcock v. Anthony (6th Cir.) 83 Fed. 779, 782, 28 C. C. A. 80, and following; Central Trust Co. v. Clark (8th Cir.) 92 Fed. 293, 34 C. C. A. 354. In accordance with the general rule of pleading that damages which the law implies as the natural and necessary result of a breach need not' be alleged, but that a mere statement of the breach and a general allegation of damage is sufficient, a recovery of the difference between the contract price and the market value may be had without particularizing the same in pleading. Peters v. Cooper, 95 Mich. 191, 54 N. W. 694; Lawrence v. Porter, supra; Asher v. Stacy, 65 S. W. 603. But, on the other hand, if the plaintiff claims to -have sustained other damages than those which will naturally be supposed to flow from an ordinary breach of such contract, he must in his pleading particularize such loss, so that the defendant may prepare himself with evidence to meet such claim. Lawrence v. Porter, 63 Fed. 64, 11 C. C. A. 27, 26 L. R. A. 167. But, upon a failure of the vendor to deliver the goods 'as required by the contract, the law throws upon the vendee the duty of using reasonable diligence to mitigate the loss occasioned by such breach by providing other goods to take the place of those with respect to which the vendor was in default. The vendee thus cannot throw upon the vendor any special loss incident to the failure of the vendee to mitigate the injury as far as reasonably possible. Warren v. Stoddart, 105 U. S. 224, 26 L. Ed. 1117; Marsh v. McPherson, 105 U. S. 709, 26 L. Ed. 1139; Lawrence v. Porter, supra; Hirsh v. Georgia Iron & Coke Co., 169 Fed. 578, 581, 95 C. C. A. 76. But the burden of proving that the damages sustained by the vendee could have been prevented or mitigated by the latter’s action rests upon the vendor, as the party guilty of the breach of the contract. Mathesius v. Brooklyn Heights R. Co., 96 Fed. (C. C.) 792, 795, and cases there cited; Lillard v. Kentucky Dist. & Warehouse Co. (6th Cir.) 134 Fed. 168, 178, 67 C. C. A. 74, and cases cited; Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co. v. Lillard, 160 Fed. 34, 40, 41, 87 C. C. A. 190.

Turning, then, to the specific criticisms made upon the plaintiff’s petition, the first of which is that the prospective profits on resale of the ties are not alleged to have been in contemplation of the parties to the contract at the time it was made, or that the parties contracted with reference thereto. The reason of the t rule which requires, in order to a recovery of loss of profits by the vendee, that the vendor should have knowledge that the goods were purchased for resale, is that in the absence of such knowledge a loss of profits could not be reasonably foreseen or anticipated as a result of the breach of contract, as such damages are not the ordinary result of a breach. The lan[517]*517guage of the petition in this regard is that the plaintiff entered into the contract in question with the defendants “with a view of reselling -the cross-ties mentioned therein for a profit, which resale thereof and anticipated or expected profits thereon, was reasonably within the knowledge and contemplation of the parties to said contract at the time of the execution of the same.” It is well settled that, in order to satisfy the requirement of notice to the vendor that the vendee is buying for the purpose of reselling, it is only necessary to prove that such purpose of resale and the recovery of profits thereon was “within the contemplation of the parties to the contract at the time of its execution.” Language no more specific than that just stated is found in any of the authorities cited by defendants. See Blue Grass Cordage Co. v. Luthy, 98 Ky. 583, 586, 33 S. W. 835, wdiere it is stated that expected profits may be recovered where “it was fairly within the contemplation of both parties that the goods were purchased with a view to a resale for profits”; Bates Mach. Co. v. Norton Iron Works, 113 Ky. 372, 68 S. W. 423, where an instruction was approved that profits could be recovered if the defendants “knew at the time of purchase by plaintiffs that they purchased same with a view to a resale, and that the profits anticipated thereon were in the contemplation of both parties.” See, also, to the same effect, Moffitt-West Drug Co. v. Byrd, 92 Fed. 290, 34 C. C. A. 351; Central Trust Co. v. Clark, 92 Fed. 293, 34 C. C. A. 354; Denhard v. Hurst, 111 Ky. 546, 64 S. W. 393; Harrow Spring Co. v. Harrow Co., 90 Mich. 147, 51 N. W. 197, 30 Am. St. Rep. 421. The only criticism made upon the allegation of the petition in question as failing to sufficiently allege notice to the defendant of the intended resale is that it is manifestly “a conclusion of the pleader,” and not a statement of fact. This proposition is apparently based upon the use of the word “reasonably.” The allegation is not subject to the criticism referred to.

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Bluebook (online)
176 F. 512, 100 C.C.A. 70, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 4272, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/howard-supply-co-v-wells-ca6-1910.