Krohne v. Orlando Farming Corp.

• Decision Date: 30 April 1958
• Docket Number: No. 176,176
• Citation: 102 So.2d 399
• Parties: Walter J. KROHNE and Walter J. Krohne, Jr., d/b/a Krohne Associates, Appellants, v. ORLANDO FARMING CORPORATION, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 399

102 So.2d 399

Walter J. KROHNE and Walter J. Krohne, Jr., d/b/a Krohne Associates, Appellants, v. ORLANDO FARMING CORPORATION, Appellee.

No. 176.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

April 30, 1958.

J. R. Wells, of Maguire, Voorhis & Wells, Orlando, for appellants.

B. F. Smathers, of Andrews & Smathers, Orlando, for appellee.

SHANNON, Judge.

The appellee filed its amended complaint against the appellants alleging that the plaintiff entered into a contract with the defendants for the purpose of harvesting a certain acreage of soybeans. It alleges that the crop was improperly and negligently harvested and that, by reason of the defendants' negligence, the crop yielded less than 20 bushels per acre whereas, so the amended complaint alleges, it should have obtained 40 bushels per acre if the defendants had not been negligent. The plaintiff had planted approximately 900 acres of soybeans, and with the exception of a few acres which were agreed by the parties not to be harvested, the defendant began what is called 'harvest by combines' in November and completed it on December 30, 1955. The case was tried before the trial court below without a jury, at the conclusion of which the trial court rendered a final judgment against the defendant in the sum of $16,835.92 and it is to this judgment that the appeal is directed.

While the assignments of error are many and the record is voluminous, the briefs of the parties are confined to four questions. For the purpose of shortening this opinion, it will suffice to say that we will discuss the testimony of Dr. F. R. Edwards and Professor Richardson, upon which the appellant devotes two points, and the greater part of its argument.

It will be remembered that this case was tried before a judge and so 'Where case is tried by circuit judge upon waiver of jury by parties, judge's findings are entitled to weight of jury verdict, before reviewing court, and will not be disturbed unless it is shown that there is total lack of substantial evidence to support his conclusion.' Chakford v. Strum, Fla.1956, 87 So.2d 419, 420. Keeping this in mind we will examine the testimony of the two above named witnesses. The appellants urged that Dr. Edwards' testimony should not have been received, but, having been received, the testimony has no validity.

Dr. Edwards' background and qualifications should be noted. He is 59 years of age, graduated from the University of Florida, College of Agriculture, in 1918; received his Master of Science degree in 1921 from Ohio State University; during 1923 and 1924 he took graduate study in Animal Husbandry and Agriculture Economics towards a Ph. D. degree in Iowa State College of Agriculture; finally, during 1943-44, he took special work in Agriculture and Economics at Yale University. From his educational background it can be readily seen that he is an expert in his field. As to his experience from a practical standpoint he has delineated the various positions he had held from the time that he left school, all of which have to do and lean towards the very thing to which he was testifying in this case. At present he holds the position of Executive Director, Florida Agricultural Service, at Plant City, Florida.

While the witness, Edwards, did not check on the various fields until January 24th, the method that Edwards used may be stated briefly as follows: When he visited the various fields he walked through each block making field notes on the apparent yield, loss, weeds, angle of cut the combine had made, etc. He then rated all the block as to the relatively heaviest yield (using plants that had not been cut at all) running to the lightest and also rated the blocks in regard to loss. Then he picked out what he judged to be typical areas in one of the heaviest, lightest and one medium yield block, measured off a certain number of square feet, and then he and his assistants actually counted the number of beans on the plants in these areas. By averaging these results and multiplying by the number of square feet in the tracts, and translating from beans into bushels, Dr. Edwards arrived at his figures. A similar technique was used in determining the number of beans wasted, so that by computation he was able to give a figure for total yield, yield per acre, total loss, and percentage of loss for each of the 25 blocks which comprised the total acreage.

The appellants complained of the fact that the witness picked only a few, small areas on which to base his findings, and also point to the fact that he never saw the fields until a month after the harvesting was completed, and to his frank admission that a few of the blocks which were harvested early were unusable in calculating loss, for the beans on the ground had become too decayed to distinguish. However, it should be observed that Dr. Edwards' approach was statistical and he was not attempting to determine the amount of beans on each row, but just get an accurate average. It is true that he could have made his study reach almost any result he wanted to by selecting predetermined areas to obtain his samples from, but this objection goes to the credibility and competence of him as a witness, and the same criticism is true to a greater or lesser extent of all expert witnesses. On the statistical viewpoint we can think of no other method that would give the same results.

We have been detailing the method used by Dr. Edwards as an expert, but we are not forgetting that in addition to him, the plaintiffs had witnesses in all phases of their case and used Dr. Edwards' testimony primarily for the purpose of reaching a statistical correctness.

As an example of his testimony he was asked:

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