McCall Co. v. Deuchler
| Decision Date | 15 November 1909 |
| Docket Number | 2,984. |
| Citation | 174 F. 133 |
| Parties | McCALL CO. v. DEUCHLER. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Augustus L. Abbott, John Blair Edwards, and Alfred C. Wilson, for appellant.
Before HOOK and ADAMS, Circuit Judges, and CARLAND, District Judge.
This is an appeal from an order disallowing a claim of the McCall Company against the estate of E. H. William Normann bankrupt, under a clause of a contract in the following words:
The contract was made January 28, 1905, and ran for 5 years and 3 months. It required Normann to take and pay for so many fashion sheets, etc., periodically during the term at a fixed price. After three years of the term had run, Normann defaulted, and was adjudged a bankrupt upon his own petition. The company presented a claim for $358.79, balance due for goods actually delivered and remaining unpaid for, and for the further sum of $807 as liquidated damages for breach of the contract. The trial court allowed the claim for $358.79 and disallowed that for $807 on the ground that it was a penalty, and not liquidated damages.
We think the trial court was right. The company offered no proof of its actual loss, but stood upon its demand for the entire amount stipulated in the contract. This is not a case of an agreed valuation of property, like that of Sun Printing and Publishing Association v. Moore, 183 U.S. 642, 22 Sup.Ct. 240, 46 L.Ed. 366; nor is it one in which the amount of actual damage is difficult of ascertainment. The contract was the common one of sale and purchase of articles of trade for the breach of which the law prescribes a clear and definite measure of damages. The provision in the contract ignores this measure altogether, and fixes an arbitrary amount which is grossly in excess of all loss that could possibly have been...
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