Ogden v. Lucas

Citations

• 48 Ill. 492

Syllabus

<p>1. Pleading at law—plea amounting to the general issue. Where a plea amounts simply to the general issue, and is, for that cause, obnoxious to a special demurrer, a general demurrer thereto should be overruled.</p> <p>2. Action—trespass or trover. Where the tenant of one person borrowed some rails from another, and built them into a fence and corn-bin on the land occupied by the borrower, and afterwards a third person purchased such land without notice as to the ownership of the rails, the remedy of the owner of the rails, after a demand and refusal, is by action of trover, not trespass.</p> <p>8. Sales—of personal properly—rights of purchasers. In an action of trespass to personal property, the court instructed for the defendant, to the effect that unless the purchaser of a field of corn gathers it within a reasonable time after it matures, the owner of the field may turn in his cattle, without responding to his vendee for the damage suffered by the destruction of the ungathered crop; Held, that this was erroneous.</p> <p>4. In such case, the purchaser is not only entitled to a reasonable time after the crop matures, to gather it, but to a reasonable time after notice given by the vendor.</p> <p>5. Damages—measure of—in action of trespass to personal property—entire accuracy not required. It is equally erroneous in such case for the court to instruct the jury that they could not find for the plaintiff, unless they could determine from the evidence, with mathematical precision, the exact amount of damage done. Entire accuracy, in such cases, is impossible ; and it is for the jury, upon the evidence adduced, to consider and arrive at as near an estimate of the damages sustained as the nature of the case will allow.</p>