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41 Miss. 368

Bickell v. Colton

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided June 15, 1867

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1867-06-15

<p>1. Measure oe damages for the taking and detention of personal property. — In actions for the taking and detention of personal property, where no question of fraud, malice, oppression, or wilful wrong, either in the taking or detention, intervenes, the measure of damages is the value'of the property at the time of the taking or conversion or illegal detention, with interest thereon to the time of trial. Whitfield v. Whitfield, 40 Miss', ft.</p> <p>2. Same: where malioe, fraud, oppression, or wilful wrong. — Where the trespass, detention, or conversion is attended by circumstances of fraud, oppression, or wilful wrong, the measure of damages becomes a matter for the consideration of the jury, guided by the evidence before them. Whitfield v. Whitfield, 40 Miss. R.</p> <p>3. Measure of damages for .breach of contract to deliver personal property when purchase-money paid. — The measure of damages in an action of assumpsit for a failure to deliver personal property where the purchase-money was paid in advance of the time appointed for the delivery, is the value of the property at the time of the delivery, with interest thereon to the time of trial.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1867-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently October 1982

1 federal appellate · 4 state decisions

201867187018801890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Ellett, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This case presents the question as to the measure of damages in an action of assumpsit founded on an agreement to deliver personal property, where the price was paid in advance of the time appointed for the delivery.

¶3In the case of Whitfield v. Whitfield, decided at April term, 1866, we held, after full consideration, the following propositions:

¶41. That in actions for taking and detaining personal property, where no question of fraud, malice, oppression, or wilful wrong, either in the taking or detention, intervenes, the measure of damages is the value of the property at the time of the taking, or conversion, or illegal detention, with interest thereon to the time of the trial.

¶52. That where the trespass, detention, or conversion is attended by circumstances of malice, fraud, oppression, or wilful wrong, the ‘law abandons the rule of compensation, in a legal sense, and the measure of damages becomes a matter for the consideration of the jury, guided by the evidence before them.

¶6rWh see no reason why the same rules should not prevail in actions brought to recover damages for the breach of a contract for the delivery of personal property. Policy and convenience require that the rule should be as uniform as possible, where the cause of action is of the same nature, without regard to the form of action adapted to the facts of the particular case.

¶7The court below, therefore, properly rejected evidence of the highest price of cotton between the day when the article was to have been delivered and the day of the trial of the cause, and confined the plaintiff to proof of the value at the time of delivery.

¶8The plaintiff would have been entitled to recover the value of the cotton on the day when it ought to have been delivered, with interest, from that date to the time of trial, and. might *370have been entitled to more if the case could have been brought within the second proposition above stated. But so far as the bill of exception shows, he gave no evidence whatever of the value of the cotton, and consequently was not entitled to a verdict for more than nominal damages.

¶9As the point in regard to the ruling of the court on the evidence offered is the only question' presented for our decision, it is unnecessary to remark upon other matters appearing in the record.

¶10The judgment is affirmed.

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