Lowenstein v. Chappell

By the Court, Johnson, J. 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 244 been depreciated in value fifteen per cent. It is apparent, from the plaintiff's statement, that packing would not necessarily injure the goods, but that the injury arose rather from their being packed in the confined space allotted by the occupant of the store and accepted by the plaintiff. Ho packing would have been necessary for the removal of the goods to the defendant's store, which was convenient to the one in which the goods were packed. As they were not packed for the purpose of such removal, I do not see how the-defendant is responsible, either for the expense of packing, or for any damages happening by reason of such packing; whether the manner in which it was done was proper or improper. Had the packing been necessary, for the purpose of removal to the defendant’s store, and been done with that view, then the plaintiff might have recovered the expense of such packing, within the principle established in the cases of Holmes v. Seely, (17 Wend. 75,) and Giles v. O’Toole, (4 Barb. 261.) But no case has gone so far as to hold that under such circumstances the plaintiff might recover the expense of removing, or preparing to remove, to some other place; much less for an injury to his goods occasioned by such removal, or by a preparation therefor. The difficulty, in the way of such a recovery, would be that the injury could not be said to flow directly, or necessarily, from the breach, but more directly from some other cause. So here, the injury was occasioned by the packing, and that was rendered necessary, not directly from the defendant’s breach, because no packing was necessary, or could have been, in peforming that agreement; but directly and immediately from the plaintiff’s agreement to give up to Hinges the store in which the goods were situated, on the 1st of April. He could not perform his agreement with Hinges without removing his goods. And the packing was the direct result of an agreement between the plaintiff and Hinges that the goods should be permitted to occupy a particular space in that store. With this agreement, and the subsequent packing, the defendant had nothing to do. The 245 plaintiff saw fit to make that arrangement with the new occupant, for his own convenience, and to avoid a breach of his agreement with such occupant. This is, surely, a result which could not naturally be expected to follow such a breach. Under no circumstances could the plaintiff be allowed to recover, of the defendant, the damages arising from such a cause, without first showing that the goods could not have safely been removed, and stored, in another place, without such packing, until he had secured a suitable place for his business. But, even then, I do not see how he could recover, because the injury would still flow only indirectly and remotely from the breach. The law will not allow a party, in an action for the breach of a contract, to recover as damages losses he has sustained in the performance of his contracts with others, even where such contracts are founded in some measure upon the contract alleged to have been broken. (Masterton v. The Mayor &c. of Brooklyn, 7 Hill, 61.) 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 246 sold, but the allowance of interest on the value of the whole stock does not seem to meet or in any respect to measure or satisfy the injury arising from this loss of opportunity to sell. On the contrary, it seems to me a species of compensation entirely inappropriate to the nature of the injury sustained. Whether the goods, aside from their injured condition, actually sold for more or less, after the fifteen days, than they might have been sold for within that period, does not appear. The plaintiff had the entire possession and control of the goods during all this time. The defendant neither converted them to his own use nor sought to do so. There has been no loss of this kind to the plaintiff, and there is no ground, that I am aware of, upon which interest can be charged upon the defendant in such a case. I think no case can be found to sanction it, and that it is unjust in principle. The charge was therefore erroneous on both grounds, and there must be a new trial, with costs to abide the event. [Monroe General, Term, December 5, 1859. T. R. Strong, Welles and Johnson, Justices.]