Volume 122 — New Hampshire Reports

1. Damages — Evidence — Review by Supreme Court In reviewing damage awards, the supreme court will view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party. 2. Damages — Burden of Proof — Generally One who seeks to recover damages has the burden of proving the extent and amount of such damages.<page_number>Page 778</page_number> 3. Damages — Lost Profits — Burden of Proof Although prospective lost profits need not be proven with absolute certainty, plaintiffs must produce sufficient evidence to demonstrate that profits are reasonably certain to result. 4. Damages — Lost Profits — Burden of Proof In an action for breach of a contract to raise chickens, where the evidence presented by the plaintiffs to prove lost profits was based solely on their opinion that the market price of chickens would remain unchanged from the time they entered into the contract, and where they failed to rebut the testimony of several witnesses who testified concerning the variables and uncertainties in the chicken-raising business, and further, where one of the plaintiffs himself testified that because of an existing depression in the chicken-raising market, he had not attempted to start a chicken-raising business on his own, the trial court properly ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to sustain their burden of proving their alleged lost profits. 5. Damages — Review — Findings of Master In an action for breach of contract, where the trial court properly ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to sustain their burden of proving their alleged lost profits, but where the evidence presented at trial, if believed, would be legally sufficient to indicate that the plaintiffs suffered damages other than lost profits as a result of the defendants' unjustified breach of contract, and the master apparently failed to consider those alleged damages, the case was remanded in order that the master could consider whether the plaintiffs were entitled to more than nominal damages. 6. Appeal and Error — Findings — Master's Findings A master need only make findings, in narrative form, of the essential facts which are sufficient to support his decision.