Hassard-Short v. . Hardison

Citations

• 19 S.E. 728
• 114 N.C. 482

Syllabus

<p>Breach of Contract — *Damages, measure of.</p> <p>1. Damages for a violation of contract are recoverable only as a compensation for loss sustained thereby; if no loss accrues, or if by reasonable diligence the injured party can reduce the loss to a nominal sum, only nominal damages will be allowed.</p> <p>2. Where, in the trial of an action for damages for breach of contract whereby defendants had agreed to deliver to plaintiff logs of a specified size for five years, it appeared that the defendants, in consequence of a dispute, ceased to deliver for one day, but on the next day resumed and continued the delivery until plaintiff refused to receive the logs, and that defendants were willing and able to carry out the original agreement, and plaintiff had shown, in order to fix the amount of damage, the aggregate estimated loss from defendants’ failure to furnish logs with which to operate the mill for a given period, the defendants were entitled to have the Court to instruct the jury to consider in diminution any profit which the plaintiff had realized, or might by reasonable diligence have realized, by purchasing logs from others or by entering into any new agreement with defendants and continuing to saw during the same period.</p> <p>3. In such case, whether the plaintiff brought his action after the lapse of a few days or at the end of the period over which the contract extended, the damage was the difference, if any, between the contract price and the price at which, by reasonable diligence, logs could have been procured, and if there was any interval, after the breach, during which the logs could not have been bought at any price, then for such period the damage was the net profit that would have been derived from sawing and selling the number of logs deliverable by the defendants under their contract during the entire period.</p>