Kingman & Co. v. Western Mfg. Co.

92 F. 486, 34 C.C.A. 489, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2161
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 13, 1899
DocketNo. 763
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 92 F. 486 (Kingman & Co. v. Western Mfg. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kingman & Co. v. Western Mfg. Co., 92 F. 486, 34 C.C.A. 489, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2161 (8th Cir. 1899).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

This is an action for a breach of a contract to order and purchase from the Western Manufacturing Company, the defendant in error, agricultura] implements of the peculiar character which it made. The manufacturing company was a corporation engaged in the manufacture and sale of agricultural implements at Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska, and Kingman & Co., the plaintiff in error, was a corporation engaged in the purchase and sale of such implements in the states of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. On May 8, 1893, King-man & Co. agreed to order of the defendant in error, at the respective dates, and to pay for at the respective prices stated below, the following implements manufactured or to be manufactured by the defendant in error, to wit: On or before October 1, 1893, 160 Kingman and Weir Standard mowers at $25 or 826 each, according to the length of the cutter bar; on or before May 8, 1893, 1,800 Defiance hand cornshellers at $4.35 each, with a fan and feed table, and at 84 without a fan and iced table; and between August 1 and December i, 1893, 1,200 Climax end gates at $1.25 each. The defendant in error brought this action for a breach of this contract, and alleged that it made and tendered all these articles to the plaintiff in error, but that Kingman & Co. refused to order, accept., or pay for any of them except 54 mowers and 400 corns lie Hers, and it sought to recover as damages the difference between the market value and the contract price of 106 mowers, 1,400 cornshellers, and 1,200 end gates. The evidence, however, failed to show that at the time of the breach of the contract, which the witnesses for the defendant in error fixed on November 22, 1893, the defendant in error had made or tendered, or had on hand to tender, any of these implements except the 106 mowers, while the fact was established that it had no end gates and no finished cornshellers, and only about 800 cornshellers in process of manufacture at (hat time. In other words, on November 22, 1893, when Kingman & Co. refused to order or receive any more implements under this contract, the manufacturing company did not have in its possession or control, and could not and did not tender, (he 1,200 end gates nor 600 of the corn-shellers required by the contract. The court below, over the objection of the plaintiff in error, gave to the jury the rule for the measure of the damages of the defendant in error which would have been applicable if it had proved the manufacture and tender of all the goods. It charged them that, if they found for the defendant [488]*488in error, it was entitled to recover the difference between the contract price and the market value of all the articles covered by the contract, whether they had been manufactured or not at the time of the breach. The principal question in the case is whether this was the true rule'for the measure of the manufacturer’s damages which resulted from the failure of the purchaser to order and take the £00 cornshellers and the 1,200 end gates which it had not made, of commenced to make, when the purchaser refused to order or take any more implements under the contract.

Compensation is the true measure of damages. The injured party may recover what he loses by the breach of his contract, but he cannot recover more, and his recovery must always be limited to the losses which he necessarily suffered from the breach. After he has received notice that the defaulting party will not perform the contract, he may not unnecessarily incur further liabilities or expenses in its performance, and then charge the increased loss he thus incurs to the defaulter. When, on November 22, 1898, the defendant in error received notice from Kingman & Go. that the latter would accept no more implements under the contract, the manufacturing company was bound to refrain from adding to its own loss and to that of the plaintiff in error by making the implements it had not commenced to make; and, if it did so, it cannot be permitted to recover the increased loss it thus voluntarily incurred. Danforth v. Walker, 37 Vt. 239, 244. When the manufacturing company received this notice there were 600 cornshellers and 1,200 end gates which it had not commenced to make, and which it never did in fact manufacture. Was it entitled to recover the difference between the market value and the contract price of these implements? The general and the just rule for measuring the damages for a breach of a contract for the sale of personal property is the difference between its market value and its contract price, because the vendor is presumed to have the property on hand; and his profits if the contract is performed, and his loss if it is broken, is the exact difference between the price he can sell the property for in the market and the price he is entitled to receive for it under the contract. This was the true measure of the loss of the defendant in error on the 106 mowers which it had made and was ready to deliver when the contract was broken, because it had them on hand, and it was entitled to their contract price; while after the breach it could obtain only their market value, so that it necessarily lost the difference. But the difference between the market value and the contract price in no way measured the loss the manufacturing company sustained on the 600 shelters and the 1,200 end gates which it never made or had. It could not sell these at the market price, for it did not have them. What it did have under the contract, at the time of this breach, was the right to manufacture and deliver these articles, and to receive the contract price for them. When the breach was made, it was deprived of this right, and its loss was necessarily the difference between the expense it would have incurred in manufacturing aDd delivering them and the contract price it would have received; or, in other words, the profit it would have made upon them if it had [489]*489performed the contract. A simple illustration will make the soundness of this view clear. The contract price of one of the shelters was four dollars, the cost of making it was three dollars, and its market value at the time of the breach was two dollars. If the defendant in error had already made, at an expense of three dollars, and had in its possession, one of these shelters, at the time of the breach, its loss upon it was two dollars, because it lost its profit, the difference between its cost and the contract price, one dollar, and also one dollar of its cost, since it could not have sold it for more than the market value, two dollars. But on a sheller which it had not made it lost none of the cost, because it had not incurred or paid any, and its only loss was the difference between the three dollars it would cost it to make the sheller and the contract price it would have received if it had made and delivered it. In this way it appears that the application by the court of the general rule for the measure of damages upon sales to the loss upon these unmanu-factured implements entailed upon the plaintiff in error a loss, much heavier than that which the manufacturing company actually suffered.

The distinction we have pointed out exists in the authorities as well as in reason. . In U. S. v. Speed, 8 Wall. 77, the government agreed to pay Speed for slaughtering and packing 50,000 hogs, which it was to furnish. It provided only 16,107, and Speed sued for damages. The court held “that the true measure of damages was the difference between the cost of doing the work and what the claimant was to receive for it, making reasonable deductions for the less time engaged, and for release from the care, trouble, risk, and responsibility attending a full execution of the contract.” In Hinckley v.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Stolteben v. General Foods Corp.
79 F. Supp. 228 (S.D. New York, 1948)
Margaret Mill v. Aycock Hosiery Mills
101 S.W.2d 154 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1936)
Rockingham County v. Luten Bridge Co.
35 F.2d 301 (Fourth Circuit, 1929)
Devoine Co. v. International Co.
136 A. 37 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1927)
Griffin Grocery Co. v. Richardson
10 F.2d 467 (Eighth Circuit, 1926)
Solomon v. Waterbury Brass Goods Corp.
6 F.2d 990 (Second Circuit, 1925)
White & Hamilton Lumber Co. v. Lynch
125 S.E. 472 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1924)
Weinberg v. Hogan Milling Co.
299 F. 458 (Eighth Circuit, 1924)
W. H. Edgar & Son v. Grocers' Wholesale Co.
298 F. 878 (Eighth Circuit, 1924)
Pacific Mutual Life Insurance v. Caraker
121 S.E. 876 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1924)
Murphey v. Northeastern Construction Co.
121 S.E. 848 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1924)
White & Hamilton Lumber Co. v. Lynch
121 S.E. 874 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1924)
W. R. Grace & Co. v. Nagle
275 F. 343 (Second Circuit, 1921)
Osage Oil & Refining Co. v. Lee Farm Oil Co.
230 S.W. 518 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1921)
Curtis v. Walpole Tire & Rubber Co.
227 F. 698 (D. Massachusetts, 1914)
Sheffield-King Milling Co. v. Domestic Science Baking Co.
19 Ohio N.P. (n.s.) 497 (Court of Common Pleas of Ohio, Hamilton County, 1914)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
92 F. 486, 34 C.C.A. 489, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2161, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kingman-co-v-western-mfg-co-ca8-1899.