141 Ga. 186 | Ga. | 1913
The headnotes require no elaboration except in one or two particulars. In applying different possible measures of damages, they should not be so used as to duplicate damages for. the sanie injury. Thus, to illustrate, to allow a recovery on account of the loss of the rental value of a tract of land or part of a tract, the loss of its value for use, and the loss of crops upon the same tract or part for the same year, would be to permit the plaintiff to recover more than once for substantially the same item of damages. The rules for measuring damages should not be so applied as to work this result.
Again, the court, over objection, allowed an amendment to the petition, in one part of which damages to the extenf of $5,000 were claimed because of injury to the plaintiff’s mercantile business. The amendment alleged, that the plaintiff had a storehouse upon .his property, where he conducted a profitable mercantile business; that prior to the erection of the dam he sold eighteen or twenty thousand dollars worth of goods annually; that for the then current year he might probably be able to sell $5,000 worth of goods ; that he had established a trade and good will in his business, of the value of $5,000 per year, and that he had been damaged in that sum. He then proceeded to allege the cause of this damage as
Generally a tort committed upon one person furnishes no cause of action in favor of another. In the complexity of human life, it is rarely the case that a homicide of one person, or a serious personal injury inflicted upon him, does not indirectly affect others. To maim a member of a firm, and thus disqualify him from the performance of his duties, may result in serious consequential loss to his partners. To kill or wound a debtor may lessen the chances of his creditors to obtain payment. To hurt an agent may incidentally affect his principal. But ordinarily these incidental damages arising from an injury committed, not upon the party so damaged, but upon a third person, furnish no right of action to the party thus indirectly affected. Numerous other illustrations might be given. We are not here concerned with the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, or master and servant, and the rights
In McNary v. Chamberlain, 34 Conn. 384 (91 Am. D. 732), a declaration alleged that the plaintiff contracted with the town of H. to keep a highway in repair for three years, and that the defendant, intending to injure the plaintiff, deposited a quantity of stone and rubbish on the road and obstructed a drain so that the water ran over and injured the road, by means of which the plaintiff was subjected to greater expense in keeping the road in repair. On demurrer it was held, that, if the acts mentioned were done with an actual intent to injure the plaintiff, the defendant was liable. The amendment in the present case does not measure up to the allegations there considered. It is alleged, that, on account of the malaria and mosquitoes arising from the pond caused by the de: fendant’s dam, customers of the plaintiff were made sick, and some of them died and others moved away from the vicinity. It is not pretended that the defendant killed some of the plaintiff’s customers, and made others .sick, for the purpose of destroying his business. The damages sought to be recovered on this account are too remote. If the plaintiff could recover on this basis, it is not readily perceived why a merchant might not bring an action against a railroad company for loss of custom arising from the death of a good customer caused by its negligence; or why, if one person should create a nuisance in a neighborhood, which should cause one of the residents to move to another place, every merchant with whom such person dealt before his removal could not recover be‘cause his patronage had been lost after his change of residence. It will be readily seen that such claims for damages might be extended into almost limitless ramifications. They do not fall within the rules in cases where property has been physically injured, or
' In the original petition there was a statement that the defendant, “contriving and intending to injure, prejudice, and aggrieve the plaintiff, and to incommode and annoy him in the possession,- occupation, and enjoyment of his said lands, wrongfully, injuriously, and negligently and improperly erected its dam and constructed its plant” without acquiring by purchase or condemnation sufficient' lands on the banks of certain rivers to enable it to back water in them without injuring him. But this had no relation to killing his customers, or making them sick, or causing them to move from the community, with a specific intent to injure him; and such general allegations in the original petition are not sufficient to free the portion of the amendment under discussion from being subject to objection. It should have been stricken or rejected on the ground herein indicated.
Judgment affirmed in part, and reversed in part.