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91 Wis. 189

Park v. Richardson

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided October 22, 1895

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1895-10-22

The plaintiffs bought of the defendant a furnace for heating their building. The furnace was warranted to work satisfactorily. It did not work satisfactorily. The plaintiffs brought this action to recover damages for the breach of the warranty. There was a jury trial, resulting in verdict and judgment for the plaintiffs, from which the defendant appeals. Error is alleged in the charge of the court as to the measure of damages.

Relies on Morse v. Hutchins

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · Decided 1895-10-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently October 1940

3 state decisions

10189519001910192019301940decided

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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Newman, J.

¶1When this case was here before (81 Wis. 899),. it was said that the proper rule of damages for breach of the' warranty of the furnace would be “ the difference between) its actual value and its value had it conformed with the warranty.” This is undoubtedly the true rule. Suth. Dam. (2di ed.), § 670; Morse v. Hutchins, 102 Mass. 440. The rule-stated by the trial court is not the equivalent of the true-rule. The rule of the trial court deprives the purchaser of the profit of his bargain if he has made a good one, and gives him an undue advantage if he has made a bad one. The furnace may have been either cheap or dear at the price' paid, even if it had conformed to the warranty. If it was a bad bargain aside from the defects complained of, the plaintiffs’ damages are less than if it had been a good bargain,. This consideration is an element in the rule of damages.. The question of the value of the furnace if it had conformed to the warranty should have been left to the jury, as well as the question of its actual value. The defendant may have-suffered by the error.

¶2By the Gourt.— The judgment of the circuit court is'reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.'

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