Irwin v. Nolde

Citations

• 176 Pa. 594
• 35 A. 217
• 1896 Pa. LEXIS 1115

Syllabus

<p>Trespass — Crops—Measure of damages.</p> <p>Generally in estimating damages for trespass where no intentional wrong has been done, the value^if the thing taken or destroyed is to be estimated as of the time of the illegal act. This rule applies to the destruction or removal of crops, and in estimating the damages the actual value at the time of the trespass is to be taken.</p> <p>Measure of damages — Lease—Rental value.</p> <p>Where a tenant has been deprived of the use of a part of the farm leased, but without willful negligence or wrong, the measure of damages is not the rental value of the fields taken, but the injury to the whole.</p> <p>The loss of a single field by disarranging the operations of the farm as a whole may cause an injury much greater than the rental value of the acres taken. The real loss is the value of the use of the part taken in connection with that which remains, and it is measured by the difference in rental value. This measure is reasonably free of uncertainty, and is easy of ascertainment and of general application. Per Pell, J.</p> <p>Trespass — Injury to part of leasehold — Measure of damages— Charge of court — Verdict.</p> <p>In an action of trespass for forcibly putting the plaintiff out of possession of two fields of a farm of forty acres which he had rented of a society of which the defendant was trustee, it appeared that the plaintiff had planted one of the fields with com, and had partly prepared the other field for a crop of corn and tobacco. He remained in undisturbed possession of the balance of the farm. Defendant was not guilty of a malicious or wanton trespass. The crops had been harvested and their value ascertained before the trial. No evidence of the diminution of the rental value of the farm as a whole was offered, and the court was not asked to instruct the jury that the measure of damages was the diminution in the rental value of the leasehold. The court gave a general instruction limiting the recovery to compensati