Hoyt v. Fuller

• Decision Date: 09 October 1900
• Docket Number: 1,343.
• Parties: HOYT v. FULLER.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

104 F. 192

HOYT v. FULLER.

No. 1,343.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

October 9, 1900

I. M Earle, for plaintiff in error.

A. B Cummins, for defendant in error.

This was an action for damages for an excessive levy. In the amended complaint upon which the action was tried the defendant in error, J. L. Fuller, alleged that on October 4 1894, the plaintiff in error, Sue A. Hoyt, caused a writ of attachment against him for the sum of $517.50 to be levied upon 23,000 bushels of his corn in the crib, which was then situated in Guthrie county in the state of Iowa; that this property was worth $11,500, and the levy was excessive in the sum of $10,745; that the plaintiff in error retained this property under the levy until December 6, 1894, when she dismissed the suit and released the levy; that the market value of the corn was 45 cents per bushel when the writ was levied, and that it advanced to 65 cents per bushel while the property was detained under the levy; that on account of the levy the defendant in error was unable to sell his corn at the highest market price thereof, and was damaged in the sum of $4,600. The plaintiff in error denied all the allegations of the complaint, except the issue and levy of the writ, and pleaded a counterclaim. There was a trial to a jury. The evidence disclosed the fact that the defendant in error held his corn from the time it was returned to him in December 1894, until August or September, 1895; that the market value of corn in Guthrie county was from 50 to 55 cents per bushel in the month of November, 1894. Thereupon the plaintiff in error offered to prove that in the months of January, February, March, April, and May, 1895, the market value of corn in that county was as high as it was during the period of detention under the writ. This evidence was excluded, and an exception was taken. There were many other objections and exceptions to the rulings of the court in the course of the trial, and at its close there was a verdict and judgment for $2,800 damages, and interest from November 19, 1894, amounting in the aggregate to $3,447.73. The writ of error has been sued out to reverse this judgment.

Before CALDWELL, SANBORN, and THAYER, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN Circuit Judge, after stating the case as above, .

The measure of damages for the conversion of personal property is the value of that property at the time and place of its conversion, in the absence of a plea and proof of facts and circumstances which entitle the injured party to special damages. Suth. Dam. Sec. 1109; Brown v. Allen, 35 Iowa, 306; Gravel v. Clough, 81 Iowa, 274, 46 N.W. 1092; Thew v. Miller, 73, Iowa, 742 36 N.W. 771. One of the exceptions to the general rule is that the measure of damages for the conversion of stocks and like speculative property is the highest market value which the property attains between the time of its conversion and the expiration of a reasonable time to enable the owner to put himself in statu quo after notice to him of the conversion. McKinley v. Williams, 74 F. 94, 103, 20 C.C.A. 312, 321, 36 U.S.App. 749, 763; Galigher v. Jones, 129 U.S. 193, 201, 32 L.Ed. 658. This, however, is not an action for conversion. It is an action for the simple wrongful detention of personal property for the period of about two months. The measure of damages for the detention of personal property is the value of its use during the period of detention, in the absence of a plea and proof of facts and circumstances which warrant special damages. Lumber Co. v. Spencer, 81 Iowa, 549, 550, 46 N.W. 1058. So far as this record discloses, the value of the use of the corn in the crib during the two months it was retained under the levy was nothing. But the plaintiff, the defendant in error here, recovered $2,800 damages for the difference between the highest market value this corn reached during the period of detention and its market value on the day it was released from the levy. The defendant offered to show that within 30 days after it was released, and while it was still held by the plaintiff, its market value was as great as it was at any time during the detention, and this evidence was rejected. Conceding for the purpose of the consideration of this question, but not deciding, that under some circumstances the highest market value of personal property during its detention is the basis for the measure of damages, the question is whether or not, in an action for special damages, consisting of the difference between the highest market value of personal property during its wrongful detention and its market value when returned to the owner, it is competent for the wrongdoer to show that after the property was returned to the plaintiff, and before he commenced his action, its market value was as great and its sale as feasible as at any time during the detention.

Compensation is the standard for the measure of damages. Rockefeller v. Merritt, 76 F. 909, 917, 22 C.C.A. 608, 616, 40 U.S.App. 666, 679. With the exception of those rare cases in which punitive damages may be recovered, of which the case at bar is not one, a defendant is never liable to pay more than the actual loss which he has inflicted upon the plaintiff by his wrong. Nor is the plaintiff permitted to exaggerate increase, or speculate on his loss so as to inflict a penalty upon the defendant. He is as much bound to protect the latter against inconsequential and unnecessary damages as the defendant is to pay to the plaintiff his actual loss. In the case before us the plaintiff has recovered damages to the amount of $2,800 and interest, amounting in the aggregate to $3,447.73, because the defendant kept the levy of a writ of attachment against the plaintiff for $517.50 on 23,000 bushels of corn in the crib, worth about $11,000, from October 4, 1894, until December 6, 1894; and the highest selling price of the corn during this period was $2,800 more than it was on December 6th, when the attachment was released. The defendant is not charged with maliciously inflicting the injury. The writ of attachment is not claimed to have been unadvisedly issued, and the only complaint is that the levy under it was excessive. Why should the defendant pay such large damages, if, as she offered to prove, the plaintiff's corn was worth as much within 30 days after the levy was released as at any time during its detention under it? If the plaintiff had sold the corn on December 6, 1894, and had thereby sustained an actual loss of the difference between the value of the corn in November and its value on that day, there would have been more plausibility in his claim that the detention entailed the loss of this large amount of money upon him. But he did not do so. He held the corn until August or September, 1895. He did not commence this action until April, 1895, after the corn had advanced in...