Western Union Telephone Company v. Hall/Opinion of the Court

United States Supreme Court

124 U.S. 444

Western Union Telephone Company  v.  Hall

The view we take of this case requires us, in answer to the fourth question certified, to say that, in the circumstances disclosed by the record, the plaintiff was entitled only to recover nominal damages, and not the difference in value of the oil if it had been purchased on the day when the massage ought to have been delivered and the market price to which it had risen on the next day. As the judgment was rendered in his favor for the latter sum, it must be reversed on that account, and, upon the facts found by the court, judgment rendered for nominal damages only, which finally disposes of the litigation. It, therefore, becomes unnecessary to consider or decide any of the other questions certified to us.

It is found as a fact that if the dispatch upon its first receipt at Oil City had been promptly delivered to Charles T. Hall, to whom it was addressed, he would, by 12 o'clock on that day, have purchased 10,000 barrels of oil at the market price of $1.17 per barrel, on the plaintiff's account. He was unable to do so in consequence of the delay in the delivery of the message. On the next day the price had advanced to $1.35 per barrel, and no purchase was made because Charles T. Hall, to whom the message was addressed, did not deem it advisable to do so, the order being conditional on his opinion as to the expediency of executing it. If the order had been executed on the day when the message should have been delivered, there is nothing in the record to show whether the oil purchased would have been sold on the plaintiff's account on the next day or not; or that it was to be bought for resale. There was no order to sell it, and whether or not the plaintiff would or would not have sold it is altogether uncertain. If he had not done so, but had continued to hold the oil bought, there is also nothing in the record to show whether, up to the time of the bringing of of this action, he would or would not have made a profit of suffered a loss, for it is not disclosed in the record whether during that period the price of oil advanced or receded from the price at the date of the intended purchase. The only theory, then, on which the plaintiff could show actual damage or loss is on the supposition that, if he had bought on the ninth of November, he might and would have sold on the 10th. It is the difference between the prices on those two days which was in fact allowed as the measure of his loss.

It is clear that in point of fact the plaintiff has not suffered any actual loss. No transaction was in fact made, and there being neither a purchase nor a sale, there was no actual difference between the sums paid and the sums received in consequence of it which could be set down in a profit and loss account. All that can be said to have been lost was the opportunity of buying on November 9th, and of making a profit by selling on the 10th, the sale on that day being purely contingent, without anything in the case to show that it was even probable or intended, much less that it would certainly have taken place.

It has been well settled since the decision in Masterton v. Mayor of Brooklyn, 7 Hill, 61, that a plaintiff may rightfully recover a loss of profits as a part of the damages for breach of a special contract; but in such a case the profits to be recovered must be such as would have accrued and grown out of the contract itself as the direct and immediate result of its fulfillment. In the language of the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts in Fox, v. Harding, 7 Cush. 516: 'These are part and parcel of the contract itself, and must have been in the contemplation of the parties when the agreement was entered into. But if they re such as would have been realized by the party from other independent and collateral undertakings, although entered into in consequence and on the faith of the principal contract, then they are too uncertain and remote to be taken into consideration as a part of the damages occasioned by the breach of the contract in suit.' This rule was applied by this court in the case of Railroad Co. v. Howard, 13 How. 307. In Griffin v. Colver, 16 N. Y. 489, the rule was stated to be that 'the damages must be such as may fairly be supposed to have entered into the contemplation of the parties when they made the contract; that is, they must be such as might naturally be expected to follow its violation; and they must be certain, both in their nature and in respect to the cause from which they proceed. The familiar rules on this subject are all subordinate to these. For instance, that the damages must flow directly and naturally from the breach of the contract, is a mere mode of expressing the first; and that they must be not the remote but proximate consequence of such breach, and must not be speculative or contingent, are different modifications of the last.' in Booth v. Rolling-Mills Co., 60 N. Y. 487, the rule was stated to be that 'the damages for which a party may recover for a breach of a contract are such as naturally and ordinarily flow from the non-performance; they must be proximate and certain, or capable of certain ascertainment, and not remote, speculative, or contingent.' In White v. Miller, 71 N. Y. 133, it was said: 'Gains prevented, as well as losses sustained, may be recovered as profits, when they can be rendered reasonably certain by evidence, and have naturally resulted from the breach.' In cases of executory contracts for the purchase or sale of personal property ordinarily the proper measure of damages is the difference between the contract price and the market price of the goods at the time when the contract is broken. This rule may be varied according to the principles established in Hadley v. Baxendale, 9 Exch. 341, 23 Law J. Exch. 179, where the contract is made in view of special circumstances in contemplation of both parties. That well-known case, it will be remembered, was an action against a carrier to recover damages occasioned by delay in the delivery of an article, by reason of which special injury was alleged. In the application of the rule to similar cases, where there has been delay in delivering by a carrier which amounts to a breach of contract, the plaintiff is not always entitled to recover the full amount of the damage actually sustained; prima facie the damages which he is entitled to recover would be the difference in the value of the goods at the place of destination at the time they ought to have been delivered and their value at the time when they are in fact delivered. Horne v. Railway Co., L. R. 8 C. P. 131; Cutting v. Railway Co., 13 Allen, 381. Any loss above this difference sustained by the plaintiff, not arising directly from the delay, but collaterally by reason of special circumstances, can be recovered only on the ground that these special circumstances, being in view of both parties to the contract, constituted its basis. Simpson v. Railway Co., 1 Q. B. Div. 274. So the loss of a market may be made an element of damages against a carrier for delay in delivery, where it was understood, either expressly or from the circumstances of the case, that the object of delivery was to get the benefit of the market. Pickford v. Railway Co., 12 Mees. & W. 766. In Wilson v. Railway Co., 9 C. B. (N. S.) 632, the plaintiff was held entitled to recover for the deterioration in the marketable value of the cloth by reason of delay in the delivery, whereby the season for manufacturing it into caps, for which it was intended, was lost.

The same rule, by analogy, has been applied in actions against telegraph companies for delay in the delivery of messages, whereby there has been a loss of a bargain or a market. Such was the case of Telegraph Co. v. Wenger, 55 Pa. St. 262. There the message ordered a purchase of stock, which advanced in price between the time the message should have arrived and the time when it was purchased under another order; and the advance was held to be the measure of damages. There was an actual loss, because there was an actual purchase at a higher price than the party would have been compelled to pay if the message had been promptly delivered, and the circumstances were such as to constitute notice to the company of the necessity for prompt delivery. The rule was similarly applied in Squire v. Telegraph Co., 98 Mass. 232. There the defendant negligently delayed the delivery of a message accepting an offer to sell certain goods at a certain place for a certain price, whereby the plaintiff lost the bargain, which would have been closed by a prompt delivery of the message. It was held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover, as compensation for his loss, the amount of the difference between the price which he agreed to pay for the merchandise by the message, which, if it had been duly delivered, would have closed the contract, and the sum which he would have been compelled to pay at the same place in order, by the use of due diligence, to have purchased a like quality and quantity of the same species of merchandise. There the direct consequence and result of the delay in the transmission of the message was the loss of a contract which, if the message had been duly delivered, would by that act have been completed. The loss of the contract was, therefore, the direct result of the defendant's negligence, and the value of that contract consisted in the difference between the contract price and the market price of its subject-matter at the time and place when and where it would have been made. The case of True v. Telegraph Co., 60 Me. 9, cannot be distinguished in its circumstances from the case in 98 Mass. 232, and was governed in its decision by the same rule. The cases of Manville v. Telegraph Co., 37 Iowa, 220, and of Thompson v. Telegraph Co., 64 Wis. 531, 25 N. W. Rep. 789, were instances of the application of the same rule to similar circumstances, the difference being merely that in these the damage consisted in the loss of a sale, instead of a purchase of property, which was prevented by the negligence of the defendant in the delivery of the messages. In these cases the plaintiffs were held to be entitled to recover the losses in the market value of the property occasioned, which occurred during the delay.

Of course, where the negligence of the telegraph company consists not in delaying the transmission of the message, but in transmitting a message erroneously, so as to mislead the party to whom it is addressed, and on the faith of which he acts in the purchase or sale of property, the actual loss based upon changes in market value is clearly within the rule for estimating damages. Of this class examples are to be found in the cases of Turner v. Telegraph Co., 41 Iowa, 458, and Rittenhouse v. Telegraph, 44 N. Y. 263; but these have no application to the circumstances of the present case. Here the plaintiff did not purchase the oil ordered after the date when the message should have been delivered, and therefore was not required to pay, and did not pay, any advance upon the market price prevailing at the date of the order; neither does it appear that it was the purpose or intention of the sender of the message to purchase the oil in the expectation of profits to be derived from an immediate resale. If the order had been promptly delivered on the day it was sent, and had been executed on that day, it is not found that he would have resold the next day at the advance, nor that he could have resold at a profit at any subsequent day. The only damage, therefore, for which he is entitled to recover is the cost of transmitting the de ayed message.

The judgment is accordingly reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to enter a judgment for the plaintiff for that sum merely.

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