Benton v. J. A. Fay & Co.

Citation1872 WL 8343,64 Ill. 417
CourtSupreme Court of Illinois
Decision Date30 September 1872
PartiesWALTER S. BENTONv.J. A. FAY & CO.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Cook county; the Hon. LAMBERT TREE, Judge, presiding.

Messrs. KNOWLTON, SMITH & SCALES, for the appellant.

Messrs. HITCHCOCK, DUPEE & EVARTS, for the appellees.

Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:

The plaintiff, resident in Iowa, came to the defendant's warehouse, in Chicago, and bought a planing machine, which he selected with reference to its weight and finish. He paid $100 in hand, and was to pay $450 more on the delivery of the machine at his residence in Iowa. The contract was, that he was to have the identical machine he had selected, which he describes in his evidence as the best he had ever seen. The defendant's agent, in charge of the warehouse, told him it had been made for exhibition at the fair, and had taken the premium. This was about February 14th, 1871. The machine was to be shipped when ordered, but defendant's agent desired to keep it in store as long as possible. Plaintiff returned home to put up his shafting and pulleys, with the understanding that he was to send for the machine as soon as he should be ready to put it up. He ordered it by letter on the 13th or 14th of March, and, after a delay of fifteen or sixteen days, received a letter from Cincinnati saying that a machine had been shipped for plaintiff to Chicago. Plaintiff declined to receive any machine except the one he had bought, and, on the 12th of April, came to Chicago and found that one in defendant's warehouse. He demanded it, but the agent of defendant refused to let him have it, and, on the 24th of April, he bought another machine. He had been delayed in his business about five weeks. This suit was brought to recover damages for non-delivery of the machine.

There is no dispute about these facts, and the only question is as to the measure of damages.

The court instructed that the damages would be the difference between the contract price and the market value of the article at the time and place when and where the same was to be delivered. The jury found for the plaintiff $175.

The rule given by the court is the correct rule in actions for the non-delivery of ordinary merchandise which can be at once replaced in the market, but it is not applicable to a case like the one at bar, where a specific article is bought for a specific purpose, known to the vendor at the time of sale, and he wilfully refuses to deliver. In such cases the ordinary rule of damages above announced would furnish a very inadequate compensation for the damages actually suffered. In the present case another planing machine might have been ordered from Chicago, but the plaintiff had contracted for this particular machine, and had arranged his other machinery with a view to its use. He had a right to rely upon its being sent to him on his order, and it was simple effrontery on the part of the defendants to offer to send him another machine that he had never seen, and which might not suit him, and deliberately retain in Chicago the machine which he had bought and for which he had partly paid.

In such a case, what is the measure of damages? Hadley v. Baxendale, decided in the court of Exchequer, and reported in 26 E. L. & Eq. 398, is a leading case on this question. There, the plaintiffs, owners of a steam grist-mill, had contracted with the defendant, a common carrier, to transport two pieces of iron, being the broken shaft of a mill, and deliver them to an artificer to serve as a model in making a new shaft. There was an unreasonable delay in the delivery, in consequence of which the plaintiffs' mill was idle for a considerable period. The defendant was not aware for what purpose the broken shaft was sent. The court said, We think the proper rule in such a case as the present is this: Where two parties have made a contract which one of them has broken, the damages which the other party ought to receive, in respect of such breach of contract, should be either such as may fairly and reasonably be considered as arising naturally, that is, according to the usual course of things, from such breach of the contract itself, or, such as may reasonably be supposed to have been in the contemplation of both parties at the time they made the contract, as the probable result of the breach of it.” The court then concede that, if the carrier had known the purpose for which the shaft had been delivered to him, the damages arising from the enforced idleness of the mill in consequence of the non-delivery of the broken shaft...

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