221 Pa. 160 | Pa. | 1908
Opinion by
The Ridgeway Dynamo and Engine Company entered into a written contract to furnish to the Pennsylvania Cement Company, two automatic center crank engines to be delivered for the net sum of 83,000. The contract provided for certain special features as to the main bearings and a particular form of cross head, and for certain other special parts as applied to the type of engine which was ordered ; the result of the requirements being apparently the production of an engine not in gen
The first question raised by the assignments of error is as to the measure of damages. The trial judge charged the jury that if they were satisfied from the evidence that the engines were manufactured from special designs for a special purpose and had no fixed market value, the plaintiff would be entitled .to recover the difference between the actual cost of manufacturing and delivering the engines, and the contract price. The learned trial judge correctly stated the rule applicable to such a state of facts as this, where from the nature of the article there is no market in which it can readily be sold. In such case the great weight of authority is to the effect that the measure of damages is the difference between what it would cost to make and deliver the article and the price which the purchaser has agreed to pay for it. The principle is thus stated in 2 Sedgwick on Damages (8th' ed.), sec. 618, p. 269 : “Where one engaged in the performance of a contract is wrongfully prevented by the employer from completing it, the measure of damages is the difference between the price agreed to be paid for the work and what it would have cost the plaintiff to complete it. Differently stated, the rule in such case is, recompense to the plaintiff for the part performance and indemnity for his loss in respect to the part unexecuted. The plaintiff is to be placed in the same condition he would have been in if he had been allowed to proceed without interference.” This rule gives to the party which has complied with the agreement the value of his bargain. In the present instance, the amount which was lost to the plaintiff by reason of the breach of the contract was capable of being ascertained with reasonable certainty, and was, therefore, properly adopted as the measure of the damages to be recovered by it as the injured party, from the one in default.
The second question raised by this appeal appears in the
The judgment is affirmed.