Gibney v. Turner

Decided May 15, 1889

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1889-05-15

R. D. Hearn, Judge. Turner sued Gibney & Patterson in a justice’s court upon an open account for $40, and on appeal to the Circuit Court, recovered judgment against them for $20.60, from which they have appealed. On the trial the plaintiff testified that the defendants employed him to put upon their building a tin gutter, for which they agreed to pay him the sum of $40.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1889-05-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently December 1973

3 state decisions

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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Per Curiam.

¶1Evidence : Damages: Breach of contract. The court did not err in excluding the testimony of Phillips; but error was committed in giving instruction No. 1, asked by plaintiff and amended by the court.

¶2The rule in cases of this kind is that plaintiff, if he prove the existence of a contract for a specific sum, for the performance of specific work, is entitled for. the breach thereof by his employer to damages equal to the difference between the cost of the work and the price to be paid for it; the cost being the market value of the material on hand and the amount that would have been paid for labor and material in completing the contract, and the value to him of his own time that would have been consumed in completing the contract. Gardenhire v. Smith, 39 Ark., 280; Brodie v. Watkins, 33 ib., 545. The value of the time is what he gained or might have gained by the saving of his time not employed in completing the contract. Reverse and remand for further proceedings.