Mount Pleasant Stable Co. v. Steinberg
| Decision Date | 31 May 1921 |
| Citation | 131 N.E. 295,238 Mass. 567 |
| Parties | MOUNT PLEASANT STABLE CO. v. STEINBERG et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Report from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Patrick M. Keating, Judge.
Action by the Mount Pleasant Stable Company against Louis Steinberg and another. Case reported. Judgment ordered for plaintiff on the findings.
Lee M. Friedman and Samuel J. Freedman, both of Boston, for plaintiff.
Stoneman & Hill, of Boston, for defendants.
The parties entered into a written contract dated June 25, 1914, by which the plaintiff was to furnish at an agreed price, single and double teams to do the defendants' trucking. There was evidence that after the parties had operated under the contract for a few months the defendants broke the contract. The auditor found that at the time of the breach the contract had four hundred and fifty days to run; that the defendants were using during the period on an average ‘four and one-half teams a day,’ and that the profit to the plaintiff would be $1 for each team, making the total profit $2,025. He also found that the plaintiff purchased for special use in the defendants' business, two ‘Cliest’ horses for which it paid $625 and sold them for $485, sustaining a loss thereby of $140. The defendants contend that the plaintiff is entitled to damages only from the time the work under the contract was discontinued to the date of sale; that the rule of damages is the same as in a contract for personal services, and it is the duty of the party claiming damages for the breach of such contract, to make all reasonable efforts to secure another contract. In the superior court the case was heard on the auditor's report. The judge found for the plaintiff in the sum of $2,025 for damages, and interest from the date of the writ, and the case was reported to this court on the question of damages only, on the pleadings and the auditor's report.
The auditor found that eight days after the contract was broken, the plaintiff sold all its horses, caravans and other equipment at public auction; that at this time there was a demand for horses and caravans, and it could have found a ready market for their use at a price equal to that which it was to receive from the defendant; that the plaintiff could have found use for its horses and wagons, had it made any real effort to do so, at the contract price; and that if the plaintiff was entitled to damages only from the time of the breach to the time of the sale, it is entitled to recover $36.
The rule that when a contract calls for the personal services of a party, he is required in case the contract is broken by the other party, to use reasonable efforts to obtain other employment reasonably adapted to his abilities, thereby lessening the damages (Maynard v. Royal Worcester Corset Co., 200 Mass. 1, 6, 85 N. E. 877;Hussey v. Holloway, 217 Mass. 100, 104 N. E. 471), has no application to the case at bar. The auditor found that the contract did not require on the part of the plaintiff any special skill and could be performed by its employees. In Dixon v. Volunteer Co-operative Bank, 213 Mass. 345, 100 N. E. 655, the plaintiff was hired by the defendant to act as its attorney for one year. His work was to examine titles to land offered to the bank as security. Before he was discharged he had the right to do additional work without accounting to the defendant for the profits received. It was held that this was not lessened by the defendant's breach of the contract, that the plaintiff's time did not belong to the defendant under his contract and he was not its servant and not bound to minimize the damages suffered by him, and that the rule of damages which is applicable when a contract for personal service is broken, did not apply. The same rule governs the case at bar. Wolf v. Studebaker, 65 Pa. 459;Allen v. Murray, 87 Wis. 41, 47, 48, 57 N. W. 979.
The contract did not preclude the plaintiff from...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Buck v. Mueller
...the performance of some specified undertaking, not necessarily to be performed by the party personally.' Mt. Pleasant Stable Co. v. Steinberg, 238 Mass. 567, 131 N.E. 295, 15 A.L.R. 749, sets out the principle applicable in the instant case. In that case plaintiff contracted to furnish defe......
-
Sullivan v. O'Connor
...with by external circumstances; the contract was indefinite. See 46 Yale L.J. at 373--386; 394--396.5 In Mt. Pleasant Stable Co. v. Steinberg, 238 Mass. 567, 131 N.E. 295, the plaintiff company agreed to supply teams of horses at agreed rates as required from day to day by the defendant for......
-
Warren v. Edgeco, Inc.
...and trailers bought in anticipation of the execution of the trucking agreement (see Mount Pleasant Stable Co. v . Steinberg, 238 Mass. 567, 570, 131 N.E. 295 (1921); Irwin v. Worcester Paper Box Co., 246 Mass. 453, 456, 141 N.E. 286 (1923); Sullivan v. O'Connor, 363 Mass. 579, 586 n. 5, 296......
-
Crystal Concrete Corp. v. Town of Braintree
... ... expense incurred in surfacing the site of the excavation ... Mount Pleasant Stable Co. v. Steinberg, 238 Mass ... 567 ... Irwin v. Worcester ... ...