Barker v. S. A. Lewis Storage & Transfer Co.

• Decision Date: 14 July 1905
• Citation: 61 A. 363,78 Conn. 198
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: BARKER et ux. v. S. A. LEWIS STORAGE & TRANSFER CO.

61 A. 363

78 Conn. 198

BARKER et ux.

v. S. A. LEWIS STORAGE & TRANSFER CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 14, 1905.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County; Leverett M. Hubbard, Judge.

Action for conversion of household furniture and personal effects by David O. Barker and wife against the S. A. Lewis Storage & Transfer Company. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Reversed.

Robert L. Hunger, for appellant. George E. Beers and Carl A. Hears, for appellees.

PRENTICE, J. The plaintiffs delivered to the defendant, as a warehouseman, for storage, certain household furniture and personal effects. This action was brought to recover damages for their conversion. Judgment having been rendered for the plaintiffs upon the verdict of a jury, the defendant appealed; assigning various reasons of appeal, which, after elimination and consolidation, are in its brief reduced to four claims of error. The most comprehensive and important of these involves a consideration of the rule for the assessment of damages. The property in question included, as was claimed, certain family records, pictures, photographs, heirlooms, and other articles of peculiar value to the plaintiffs. With respect to these articles the court gave instructions in the language of Green v. Boston & L. R. Co., 128 Mass. 222, 35 Am. Rep. 370, of which no complaint is made. The remaining property was household furniture and effects, including books, all claimed to have been purchased by or presented to the plaintiffs when new for use by them in housekeeping, and in fact so used by them in their home in New Haven until the time that they were stored with the defendant upon the occasion of their having temporarily broken up housekeeping to go into the country. The defendant claimed that the measure of the plaintiffs' recovery for these articles was their fair market value at the time and place of conversion, with lawful interest since that date. It asked the court to so charge, and sought by the introduction of evidence to show that there was a secondhand market for such things in New Haven, and presumably, although no definite offer was made, to follow up that line of inquiry by offering evidence of some sort claimed to show the value of articles of the kind in question in such market. The court was correct in refusing to instruct the jury as requested, and in excluding said testimony.

The cardinal rule is that a person injured shall receive fair compensation for his loss or injury, and no more. Baldwin v. Porter, 12 Conn. 473. Commonly in cases of conversion the loss is the value of the property. Baldwin v. Porter, supra. Commonly the value of the property, as representing the owner's loss, is its market value, if it have one, since thereby is indicated the cost of replacing. Hence the subordinate rule of general application appealed to by the defendant. But the principal rule, which seeks to give fair compensation for the loss, is the paramount one; and ordinarily, when the subordinate one fails to accomplish the desired result, it yields to an exception or modification. Sutherland on Damages, § 12. It is now generally recognized that wearing apparel in use, and household goods and effects owned and kept for personal use, are articles which cannot in any fair sense be said to be marketable and have a market value, or at least a market value which is fairly indicative of...