Mather v. American Express Co.

138 Mass. 55 | Mass. | 1884

Field, J.

It is not denied that the defendant is liable in damages for the reasonable cost of the new plans, and for other expenses, if there were any reasonably incurred in procuring the new plans ; but it is denied that the defendant is liable in damages for the delay in constructing the house occasioned by the loss of the plans. It is assumed that, the plans had no market value, and were only useful to the plaintiff. The rule of damages then is their value to the plaintiff. As new plans could not be bought in the market ready made, some time necessarily must be consumed in making them, and the plaintiff contends that the value of the plans for immediate use, or for use at the time he would have received them from Boston, if the defendant had duly performed its contract, is their value to him, and that this value is made up of the cost of procuring the new plans and the damages occasioned by the delay. Whatever he calls it, it is damages for the delay in constructing the house caused by the loss of the original plans that he seeks to recover. It does not appear that the defendant had notice of the contents of the package at the time it was delivered for transportation, or any notice or knowledge that the plaintiff needed the plans for the construction of a house which, he had begun to build. The damages caused by the delay are not such as usually and naturally arise solely from a breach of the contract of the defendant to carry the package safely to its destination, nor were they within the reasonable contemplation of both parties to this contract, as likely to arise from such a breach. The fact that the plans had a special value to the plaintiff, and could not be purchased, does not touch the question of including in the damages the injury to the plaintiff occasioned by reason of other contracts which he had made, and of work which he had undertaken in expectation of having the plans for use immediately, or after the usual delay involved in sending the plans to Boston, and in having them traced and returned to him. Damages for such injury are not given unless the circumstances are such as to show that the defendant ought fairly to be held to have assumed a liability therefor when it made the contract.

We think that Hadley v. Baxendale, 9 Exch. 841, which has been cited with approval by this court, governs this case.

The case of Green v. Boston Lowell Railroad, 128 Mass. 221, on which the plaintiff relies, was an action to recover the value of an “ oil painting, the portrait of the plaintiff’s father.” The opinion attempts to lay down a rule for determining the value of such a painting, when the plaintiff had no other portrait of his father, and when, so far as appears, it had no market value; but the opinion does not discuss any question of damages not involved in determining the value of the portrait to the plaintiff. The plaintiff in that case made no claim for damages occasioned by a loss of a profitable use of the portrait.

Exceptions sustained.