258 F. 147 | D.C. Cir. | 1919
Sommerville rented a telephone from the Chesapeake <§: Potomac Telephone Company under a contract whereby he was required to pay $3.25 a mouth in advance for its use. This gave him the right to 600 outgoing calls in a year, but he was obliged to pay an additional sum for all such calls in excess of that number. A controversy arose between him and the company with respect to the number of calls. The company claimed that he had used 825, while he asserted that he had made only 739 calls. For this number he paid, and refused to pay for more. ’During July, 1913, a month for which he had paid $3.25 in advance, the company, without any notice to him, cut off his service for one day, claiming that he had failed to> pay the amount due for the calls which he had used.
Some 40 or 50 per cent, of Sommerville’s business, that of selling engine room supplies, was done over the telephone. After his outgoing service had been cut off, he could not talk with his customers over the telephone, except when they “called him up.” If he desired to initiate a call, he was not permitted to do so. In such case he was compelled to visit the patron with whom he wished to communicate
“1. If the service is interrupted otherwise than by the negligence or willful interference of the subscriber, a rebate at the minimum annual rate for the use of a station and for local messages, fixed in the schedule in force at the beginning of the year in which the interruption occurs, shall be made for the time such interruption continues after reasonable notice in writing to the company, but no other liability shall, in any ease, attach to the company.”
Sommerville brought suit against the company for damages, alleging that he was not indebted in any sum whatever at the time his service was cut off and that the company’s' action was without justification. The company defended on the ground that he was indebted to it, as above stated, and that because of this it had a right to do what it did. The court instructed the jury that if they found that Som-merville was not indebted to the company at the time the service was withdrawn, he would be entitled to damages, but limited the amount thereof to a proportionate part of the $3.25 which he had paid for the use of the telephone for one month; in other words, that since he was deprived of its use for only one day he could recover only one-thirtieth of that sum. In obedience te this instruction, the jury awarded him 11 cents damages.
It is claimed by Sommerville that the court erred in this instruction; that he was entitled, not only to a proportionate part of the $3.25, but also to exemplary damages, and damages for the inconvenience and humiliation which he suffered. On the other hand, the company asserts that under the provision of the contract quoted above his recovery was limited to the amount paid by him to the company for the period, one day, for which it refused him service.
Nor is authority wanting for thp proposition that the company must respond in damages for its action in a case like this.
“The damage sustained by the loss of a telephone in its very nature is largely composed of inconvenience and annoyance. Tha t a person deprived of the use of the telephone is materially damaged, all will concede. What is the amount of damage in dollars and cents cannot be accurately slated by the party suing, for the reason that his damage consists not only in pecuniary losses; hut, it consists in inconvenience, discomfort, and an annoyance, and it must he left to the jury to determine what is the damage sustained, taking into consideration the discomfort, the annoyance, and inconvenience suffered, together with actual and pecuniary losses.” Telephone Co. v. Hobart, 89 Miss. 252, 262, 263, 42 South. 349, 351 (119 Am. St. Rep. 702).
In Shepard v. Milwaukee Gaslight Co., 15 Wis. 349, 82 Am. Dec. 679, a case in which the defendant refused to furnish gas to the plaintiff, the court said:
"The ‘inconvenience and annoyance’ occasioned directly by the wrongful act or refusal of the defendant are always legitimate items in estimating the damages in actions of this kind.”
See, also, Carmichael v. Telephone Co., 157 N. C. 21, 72 S. E. 619, 39 L. R. A. (N. S.) 651, Ann. Cas. 1913B, 1117; Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Jackson, 95 Miss. 79, 48 South. 614; Ives v. Humphreys, 1 E. D. Smith (N. Y.) 196, 202, 203.
‘“For sucb annoyance and discomfort the courts of law will afford redress by giving damages against the wrongdoer * * * ”
—and concluded its opinion thus:
“As with a blow on the face, there may be no arithmetical rule for the estimate of damages. There is, however, an injury, the extent of which the jury may measure.”
- The appellee seeks to distinguish the ITobart, Carmichael, and Jackson Cases on the ground that they involved residence and not business telephones. But why should the rule with respect to business telephones be different from that relating to residence telephones.. In each case the right to recover a proportionate part of the rent paid must be admitted. In each the inconvenience and annoyance which would naturally result from a breach of the contract must have been within the contemplation of the parties at the time the contract was entered into. If the householder is entitled to have a monetary value placed by the jury upon his annoyance and inconvenience, why has not the business man the same right? We think he has, and we perceive nothing either in reason or in the adjudged' cases which would warrant a contrary holding.
The amount of damages properly recoverable in the case before us may not be large; but, however this may be, we are convinced that where a public service corporation, like the appellee, breaches its duty tó a patron by wrongfully depriving him of its service, it must respond in adequate damages for the inconvenience, annoyance, and loss of time resulting from such breach.
The judgment is reversed, at the cost of the appellee, and the case remanded for a new trial in harmony with the views expressed in this opinion.
Reversed.