Wolf v. Studebaker

• Decision Date: 07 July 1870
• Citation: 65 Pa. 459
• Parties: Wolf <I>versus</I> Studebaker.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

65 Pa. 459

Wolf versus Studebaker.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 11, 1870.

July 7, 1870.

May 11th 1870.

Before THOMPSON, C. J., READ, AGNEW and SHARSWOOD, JJ.

Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland county: Of May Term 1870, No. 45 S. Hepburn, Jr. and W. M. Penrose, for plaintiff in error.— The measure of damages is what the plaintiff would have immediately made out of the contract: Hoy v. Gronoble, 10 Casey 10. The proximate, not the remote or possible consequences are the measure of damages: Pittsburg Coal Company v. Foster, 9 P. F. Smith 365; Adams Express Company v. Egbert, 12 Casey 360; Fassler v. Love, 12 Wright 410; Fleming v. Beck, Id. 312.

I. Ritner and L. Todd, for defendant in error, cited King v. Steiren, 8 Wright 99.

The opinion of the court was delivered, July 7th 1870, by THOMPSON, C. J.

We have no question before us involving the fact of an agreement between the plaintiff and defendant, by which the latter agreed to let to the former, on the shares, her farm for one year, from the 1st of April 1867. The verdict has settled that fact in favor of the plaintiff. The only question before us, therefore, is that relating to damages for the breach of the contract to give possession by the defendant.

The plaintiff claimed to recover the value of his contract, that is to say, what he might reasonably have made out of it, for his damages. In Hoy v. Gronoble, 10 Casey 10, which, like the case in hand, was to recover damages for a failure, on part of the defendant, to deliver possession of the farm which he had agreed to let to the plaintiff to farm on the shares, the rule as to damages is thus stated in the opinion of the court by Strong, J.: "We cannot say, therefore, that the jury were misled in this case by being told that the damages of the plaintiff should be measured by what he could have made on the farm. This was but another mode of saying that he was entitled to the value of his bargain." This, as a rule, does not seem to have been controverted by the defendant. But she was permitted to prove, under objection, in mitigation of damages, by one Abraham May, as follows: —

"Wolf was engaged in hauling for the bridge in the summer of 1867; he commenced hauling in June, and continued up to the cold weather; before this he was working lots around; after this he marketed some. Wolf and I looked over his books at one time, and his earnings amounted to about $1000; he hauled after this; he hauled hay to his own stable, and some to Bowman's in the latter part of March; his property consists of a house and stable, and about a quarter of an acre of land; I was at Wolf's sale," &c.

The earnings of this man in this way, it was thought by the learned judge, should to the extent of them mitigate the damages arising from the defendant's broken contract; in other words, the logic seemed to be that because he was an industrious man, he was not within the same rule of compensation that one not so would be. There are undoubtedly cases in which such facts do mitigate damages. Such commonly occur in cases of the employment of clerks, agents, laborers or domestic servants, for a year or a shorter determinate period. But I have found no case where a disappointed party to a contract for a specific thing or work, who, taking the risk from necessity, of a different business from that which his contract if complied with would have furnished, and shifting for himself and family for employment for them and his teams, is to be regarded as doing it for the benefit of a faithless contractor. It seems to me, therefore, that the rule upon which the testimony quoted was admitted was wrested from its legitimate purpose, and applied to an illegitimate one. In 2 Greenlf. Ev., § 261 a, the distinction is marked between "contracts for specific work and contracts for the hire of clerks, agents, laborers and domestic servants for a year or shorter determinate periods." In that case the learned author shows that the defendant may prove, on a breach of the contract, "either that the plaintiff was actually engaged in...