Crystal Dome Oil & Gas Co. v. Savic

• Decision Date: 14 December 1931
• Docket Number: 5676
• Citation: 51 Idaho 409,6 P.2d 155
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court
• Parties: CRYSTAL DOME OIL & GAS COMPANY, a Corporation, Respondent, v. PAUL G. SAVIC, Appellant

6 P.2d 155

51 Idaho 409

CRYSTAL DOME OIL & GAS COMPANY, a Corporation, Respondent, v. PAUL G. SAVIC, Appellant

No. 5676

Supreme Court of Idaho

December 14, 1931

EXEMPLARY DAMAGES.

1. Jury may assess exemplary damages in nature of smart money in replevin action, where taking or detention is accompanied by wanton, malicious, or oppressive conduct.

2. Right to nominal damages arising from violation of plaintiff's legal right held sufficient basis for recovery of punitive damages without proving actual damages.

3. In absence of contrary statute, general verdict is sufficient though both actual and punitive damages are recoverable.

4. Defendant, desiring specific instruction on punitive damages should especially request it, where both actual and punitive damages are recoverable.

APPEAL from the District, Court of the Third Judicial District, for Ada County. Hon. Chas. F. Koelsch, Judge.

Action in claim and delivery, seeking damages for retention of a geological report. Judgment for plaintiff. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed; costs to respondent.

S. L Tipton, for Appellant.

To recover damages for the detention of personal property there must be evidence of its usable value during the time of its detention. (Cunningham v. Stoner, 10 Idaho 549, 79 P. 228; Duck Lee v. Boise Dev. Co., 21 Idaho 461, 122 P. 851.)

Compensatory damages will not be awarded in an action in claim and delivery unless there is evidence of loss and the extent of the loss. (Mergenthaler Linotype Co. v. Kansas State Printing Co., 61 Kan. 860, 59 P. 1066.)

It was error on the part of the court to instruct the jury on the usable value of the report, there being an entire absence of evidence as to its usable value while detained. (Gwinn v. Gwinn, 5 Idaho 271, 48 P. 295; Lloyd v. Anderson, 39 Idaho 314, 227 P. 32; Mahaffey v. Carlson, 39 Idaho 162, 228 P. 793; Brown v. Morris, 3 Kan. App. 86, 45 P. 98.)

J. B. Eldridge, for Respondent.

Punitive damages are allowable in replevin actions in all cases where there has been peculiar circumstances of outrage, oppression and wrong in the taking or detention of the property sought to be recovered. (Unfried v. Libert, 20 Idaho 708, 119 P. 885; Gunnell v. Largilliere Co., 46 Idaho 551, 269 P. 412; Arzaga v. Villalba, 85 Cal. 191, 24 P. 656; Hall v. Smeldley Co., 112 Conn. 115, 151 A. 321; McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. v. Drake, 5 Kan. App. 882, 48 P. 944; Heard v. James, 49 Miss. 236; Dreimuller v. Rogow, 93 N.J.L. 1, 107 A. 144.) In this state where a party desires other instructions than those given on the question of damages he must offer them at the trial, otherwise, error cannot be predicated on the failure of the trial court to give the proper instruction. (Boomer v. Isley, 49, Idaho 666, 290 P. 405; Lessman v. Anschustigui, 37 Idaho 127, 215 P. 460; Joyce Bros. v. Stanfield, 33 Idaho 68, 189 P. 1104.)

LEE, C. J. Budge, Givens, Varian and McNaughton, JJ., concur.

OPINION

LEE, C. J.

Plaintiff and respondent, Crystal Dome Oil & Gas Company, sued defendant and appellant, Paul G. Savie, seeking to replevin a geological report, of which it claimed to be the owner and which, it alleged, Savie "Wrongfully, wilfully, maliciously and unlawfully took possession of" and "Wrongfully, wilfully, maliciously and unlawfully" continued to withhold and retain, to plaintiff's damage in the sum of $ 10,000. The value of the report was declared to be $ 3,085. Defendant and appellant denied "each and every allegation in plaintiff's complaint contained." Verdict was rendered in respondent's lay or for the value of the property and for $ 10,000 damages; and from that part of the judgment carrying damages came this appeal.

The errors specified may be resolved into two contentions, viz: That there was an utter lack of evidence to establish any actual damage as a prerequisite to punitive damages, and that the trial court erred in giving Instruction No. 11 directing the jury to find from the evidence what, if any, was the usable value of said report, appellant insisting that "there is no evidence in the record as to the value of the geological report during the time of its detention by the defendant."

From the record, it appears that there had been trouble between the parties. Appellant had been deposed as president and his salary stopped. Five witnesses testified that thereafter at divers times he stated that, if he could not "run the company," he would "wreck it" or tie it up so that all operations would cease. The record further shows that, due to its inability to exhibit the withheld report, respondent suffered repeated cessation of negotiations looking to the purchase of stock, on one occasion, parties interested in "taking over the whole enterprise" refusing "to go any further, unless we could get it."

In replevin actions, where the taking or detention is accompanied by wanton, malicious or oppressive conduct, the general rule is that the jury may assess exemplary or punitive damages in the nature of "smart money." The rule was clearly enunciated in Unfried v Libert, 20 Idaho 708, 119 P. 885. In such cases, definite proof of actual damages is unnecessary. To show that a legal right has been violated is sufficient, the violation itself, supplying a foundation for nominal damages. Western Union Tel. Co. v. Lawson, 66 Kan. 660, 72 P. 283, defining nominal damages as those arising "by implication of law for the violation of the rights of another, from which injury arises but which is either incapable of ascertainment, or the value of which the proof wholly fails to show," Duggan v. Baltimore etc. R. Co., 159 Pa. 248, 39 Am. St. 672, 28 A. 182, declaring nominal damages recoverable "where a legal right is to be vindicated from an invasion that has produced no actual present loss of any kind," Maher v. Wilson, 139 Cal. 514, 73 P. 418, denominating them "a trifling sum awarded.... where, from the nature...