Southern Ry. Co. v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 14 November 1907
• Citation: 153 Ala. 266,44 So. 837
• Parties: SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. COLEMAN.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

44 So. 837

153 Ala. 266

SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. COLEMAN.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 14, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court, Hale County; B. M. Miller, Judge.

Action by B. W. Coleman against the Southern Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Exceptions were reserved to the following oral charge of the court "The second count not only charges that it did not get it there in a reasonable time, but that it was willfully and intentionally delayed. Was it intentionally or purposely delayed? That would amount to gross or wanton negligence. That is a question for you to look after. If it did not deliver it there in a reasonable time, and did not exercise reasonable diligence, it would be liable for the actual damages plaintiff suffered. Do you believe it did not, and that this iron was used in the ginning, and that the gin was shut down? If so, it would be liable, then, for the profits arising from the ginning of cotton and the gin from the time it should reach Selma and the iron works company received it--from that time until they actually received it. It would be further liable, gentlemen of the jury, if you find it was necessary for plaintiff in this case to go to Selma, and find the press pin, and help to deliver it, and you further find that it did not exercise reasonable diligence in delivering it there, defendant would be liable for the actual expenses of plaintiff in going to Selma to help deliver it. Under the second count of the complaint it is charged that the defendant willfully or wantonly failed to deliver the goods or carry out the contract in a reasonable time. The law says that as a punishment, what they call 'punitive damages'; and if you do not believe that they delivered within a reasonable time, and are guilty of such negligence as would amount to gross negligence, you have a right under the second count, if you believe the evidence, to give punitive damages." Among other charges the defendant requested the following charge, which was refused: "(21) I charge you, gentlemen of the jury, that under the evidence in this case you cannot find for the plaintiff for more than nominal damages." The first count was in simple, and the second count in wanton or willful, neglect of duty.

Pettus Jeffries & Pettus, for appellant.

De Graffenreid & Evins, for appellee.

DENSON J.

This suit was brought to recover damages alleged to have accrued to the plaintiff on account of a failure on the part of the defendant, a common carrier of goods, to promptly deliver a press pin to the Union Iron Works, in Selma, Ala. The case briefly stated, is this: The plaintiff owned and operated a public ginnery at Sawyerville, a station on the Southern Railway distant 56 miles from Selma. On the 13th of October 1904, his press pin, a part of the machinery of his ginnery, being in such condition that it could not be used, plaintiff delivered it to the defendant's agent at Sawyerville, to be shipped to the Union Iron Works in Selma, there to be immediately repaired by that concern and shipped back to the plaintiff. At the time of the delivery of the pin to defendant's agent for shipment, plaintiff told him that the pin was a part of the machinery of his ginnery, that the ginnery could not be operated until the pin was repaired, and that he was sending it to the consignee for immediate repair and return, and that his ginnery would be "at a standstill" until the pin should be repaired and returned. The pin was shipped in a certain car on the same day it was delivered for shipment, but through the negligence of the defendant's agents at Selma it was not delivered to the consignee until the 20th of October, 1904, and not until the plaintiff went to Selma on that day and located the car it was in. When the pin was located, it was repaired within three hours by the consignee, and was returned to the plaintiff by express on the following day.

The only points of serious contest in the cause arise in respect to the measure of damages on account of the failure to promptly deliver the pin to the consignee in Selma, or to deliver it within a reasonable time; plaintiff's contention, which prevailed in the court below, being that he was entitled to recover as damages the profits which he would have made on ginning cotton, the ginning of which was lost to him by the breach of the defendant's duty in not delivering the pin at Selma within a reasonable time, together with the expenses incurred by plaintiff in going to Selma to procure the delivery of the pin. The court overruled defendant's motion to strike these items of damages from the complaint, and overruled a demurrer to the complaint making the point that they were not recoverable. Error cannot be predicated of these rulings, as the defendant could have raised the same points, as it has done, by objections to evidence, exceptions to the oral charge of the court authorizing such recovery, and by special charges. Vandiver & Co. v. Waller, Adm'x, 143 Ala. 411, 39 So. 136, and authorities there cited.

The broad general rule is that a party injured by a breach of contract or breach of duty is entitled to recover all his damages, including gains prevented as well as losses sustained, subject to two conditions: The damages must be such as may be fairly supposed to have entered into the contemplation of the parties when they made the contract, or when the duty was assumed or imposed--that is, the damages must be such as might be expected to follow its violation;...