Hodgkins v. Price

• Decision Date: 25 February 1886
• Citation: Hodgkins v. Price, 141 Mass. 162, 5 N.E. 502 (Mass. 1886)
• Parties: HODGKINS v. PRICE.
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

141 Mass. 162

5 N.E. 502

HODGKINS v. PRICE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

February 25, 1886

COUNSEL

J.A. Fogg, for plaintiff.

S Lincoln and G.B. Ives, for defendant.

OPINION

MORTON, C.J.

After the former decision in this case it was referred to an assessor, "to determine the amount of damages sustained by the plaintiff by reason of the withholding from him by the defendants of premises described in the plaintiff's declaration." Hodgkins v. Price, 137 Mass. 13. The case now comes before us upon the assessor's report. The plaintiff argues that many of the findings of facts by the assessor are not supported by the evidence. But the evidence before him is not reported. We must take the facts found by him to be true, and the only questions properly before us are such questions of law as are warranted by the report. The principal of these questions is as to the rule of damages which ought to be applied under the peculiar circumstances of this case. The assessor finds that the buildings described in the lease to the grantor of the plaintiff were partially destroyed by fire on May 21, 1875; that neither the lessee nor the plaintiff expressed or entertained any intention of repairing or rebuilding the premises; that the defendant's grantor, in July, 1875, began to remove the remains of the old building and afterwards erected a new building, which was finished in March, 1876, and which was much larger, more expensive and valuable than the old building, and yielded much larger rents and profits, and that the defendants, and their grantors, in so doing, acted under the advice of counsel, in good faith, and in the belief that they were entitled to the possession of the premises.

In an action like this the rule of damages should have, as its basis, compensation to the plaintiff for the injury he has sustained. The measure of damages should be, as in an action of trespass for mesne profits, a sum which, upon just and equitable principles, will furnish such compensation or indemnity. The plaintiff should be placed in as good a position as he would have been in if the defendants had not dispossessed him. It seems to us clear that the plaintiff's claim, that he is entitled to the whole amount of the rents and profits from the improved estate without any deduction for such improvements, is unjust and unreasonable. He would thus receive more than compensation. He would gain more than he had lost, and would enrich himself at the expense of defendants. We think he has no good reason to complain of the first rule adopted by the assessor in his report, at the request of the defendants. This rule is that the measure of damages is the same as it would have been if the defendants had wrongfully withheld possession of the demised premises for the same length of time, in substantially the same condition in which they were just prior to such fire. In fact, at the time the plaintiff was dispossessed, a part of the buildings had been burned and could not be used or leased to tenants. The landlord was not obliged to repair, and the tenants had no intention of doing so, and could not do so except at considerable expense. In assuming that the buildings were in the same condition as just before the fire, in order to determine the value of the...