8
F. 463.
Facts:
The
Missouri Furnace made a contract with the defendant for the sale and daily
delivery of coke. Cochran repudiated the
contract partway through, and Missouri Furnace contracted with a third party to
deliver the rest of the coke for the year at the (now much higher) market
price. The plaintiff sued for the
difference between the market value of the remaining coke for the year and the
contract cost. The trial court instead
awarded the plaintiff the market price on each date of delivery minus the
contract price. The plaintiff moved for
a new trial based on faulty jury instructions.
Issue:
What
damages should be awarded to the plaintiff if they made a contract to replace
the original contract part of the way through its term?
Rule:
Damages are
to be measured by the difference between the cost of the goods on the date of
delivery and the contracted cost of the goods.
Analysis: The court argues that the
plaintiff should not recover for the full difference between the value of the
coke at the time the plaintiff made a contract for the rest of the year. They say that the plaintiff was under no
compulsion to make the second contract, and in fact, if they had purchased the
coke on a day-to-day basis or on shorter contracts they would have saved a lot
of money because the price of coke went down so much later.
Conclusion:
The motion
for a new trial was rejected.
Note
This
note gives some background about the labor-management relations of the time
that influenced the price of coke.
Back to Limitations on Expectation
Damages