166 Ga. App. 183 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1983
This is an appeal by the defendants from a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs in a suit to recover damages for breach of a covenant not to compete.
The defendants, Mr. and Mrs. Webster, owned all the stock of EMP, Inc., which operated a personnel employment business in Columbus, Ga. On August 3, 1980, they sold the business to the plaintiffs, Mr. and Mrs. Purdy, for a total consideration of $30,000. The sale contract contained a covenant not to compete, which read, in
Shortly after the sale was consummated, two former employees of the defendants, whom Mr. Webster described as being like daughters to him, left the firm to open their own employment agency in Columbus, known as Career Placements. Although neither of the defendants acquired any financial interest in this new firm or received any compensation from it, there was evidence that they did much to assist in its establishment and operation. For example, Mr. Webster testified that he made interest-free loans totaling $11,500 to the two women, that he furnished furniture for their offices, and that he occasionally performed bookkeeping services for them. In addition, Mrs. Webster admitted that she took out an ad in the yellow pages for the Career Placements on August 13, 1980, only 10 days after the sale contract with the plaintiffs was executed, and that she subsequently wrote letters soliciting business for the firm in which she described herself as its “senior counselor.”
The complaint was in two counts, the first seeking $10,000 actual damages for breach of contract and the second seeking $350,000 actual and punitive damages for fraud. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $10,000 for breach of contract. The defendants appeal the denial of their motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Held:
“ ‘Damages growing out of a breach of contract, in order to form the basis of a recovery, must be such as can be traced solely to the breach, must be capable of exact computation, must have arisen naturally and according to the usual course of things from such breach, and must be such as the parties contemplated as a probable result of the breach.’ Sanford-Brown Co. v. Patent Scaffolding Co., 199 Ga. 41 (33 SE2d 422) [1945].” Bennett v. Associated Food Stores, 118 Ga. App. 711, 714 (165 SE2d 581) (1968). See generally OCGA §§ 13-6-1, 13-6-2 (Code Ann. §§ 20-1402, 20-1407).
There is no evidence in the transcript before us to indicate that the plaintiffs lost any income or suffered any other injury as the result of the defendants’ conduct in helping their two former employees establish and operate a competing employment agency. We cannot
Judgment reversed.