30 Barb. 241 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1859
Whether the plaintiff was entitled to recover, for the injury happening to the goods, in consequence of packing them, must depend upon the question whether such injury was the direct and necessary consequence of the defendant’s neglect or refusal to perform his agreement. The general rule is that the party injured by a breach of a contract is entitled to recover all his damages, including gains prevented, as well as losses sustained, provided they are certain, and such as might naturally be expected to follow the breach. (Griffin v. Colver, 16 N. Y. Rep. 489.) The goods injured, were packed not for the purpose of removing them to the store which the defendant had agreed to lease to the plaintiff, but for the purpose of getting them out of the way of the tenant to whom the plaintiff had sold his lease of the store in which they were then situated, and where they had been previously kept for sale, while such store was undergoing repairs, in order to prevent them from being injured by the repairs, and also to place them in the room, in the same store, which the plaintiff was permitted to occupy by the new occupant. The plaintiff testifies that they had to pack the stock in such space as Hinges, the new occupant, allowed them to occupy. In consequence of the packing, as he says, “the goods were mussed up, and some ruches and flowers had to be replaced.” From this cause, he estimated that the goods had
That is precisely what the plaintiff was allowed to recover here. It was damages he sustained in getting his goods out of the way of Hinges, and thus performing his agreement with him, and not a loss sustained in endeavoring to perform his agreement with the defendant. I am of opinion, therefore, that the charge in respect to the allowance of this item was erroneous.
In respect also to the item of interest, which the jury was instructed to allow, I am unable to perceive upon what principle the plaintiff was entitled to it. The defendant, by his breach, may have deprived the plaintiff of the opportunity of exposing his goods for sale for the period of fifteen days. But why should the plaintiff recover interest on the value of his entire stock for this ? Was that in any sense the measure of his loss ? He might have sold a portion of his stock in that time, but it is hardly to be supposed he could have disposed of the whole on the first day when, according to the charge, the interest should commence. If he had sold a portion of it in this time, he might have realized a profit on the portion thus
T. R. Strong, Welles and Johnson, Justices.]