Studdard v. Carter

Citations

• 120 Miss. 246
• 82 So. 70

Syllabus

<p>1. Loos and Logging. Contract for sawing logs. Election to treat contract as breached.</p> <p>Where a contract by which plaintiff was . to saw logs at a stated price for defendant provided, that in case the market should become dull, so that defendants could not dispose of their lumber without loss, plaintiff should close down his mill. In such case plaintiff could elect to treat the contract as breached where defendants failed to supply logs for nearly a year after the lumber could have been sold at a profit, and the bringing of suit was such an election.</p> <p>2. Logs and Logging. Breach of contract. Damages. Amount.</p> <p>Under the evidence as set out in this case which was an action for breach of contract to furnish logs, which were to be sawed by plaintiff for defendants at a certain price per thousand feet, the court held that the jury was warranted in finding a larger verdict than forty-five hundred dollars.</p> <p>3. Damages. Speculative damages.</p> <p>Evidence is not speculative which shows the cost of each item with reasonable certainty as the law only requires reasonable certainty and not mathematical certainty.</p> <p>4.' Damages. Duty to mitigate. Who may invoke the rulé.</p> <p>Where the contract obligated plaintiff, the owner of a saw-mill, not to buy timber from- others without defendant’s consent during the time he was employed to cut timber for them, and defendants breached the contract by failing'- to furnish timber, they are not in a position to invoke the rule that the plaintiff should be charged with such sums as he could have earned by taking other contracts; where defendants did not notify plaintiff that they wer,e willing for him to contract for timber with others.</p> <p>5. Appeal and Ebroü. Verdict approved by chancellor. Conclusiveness.</p> <p>While the chancellor has the power to set aside a jury verdict in cases where a jury trial is not granted by statutes and decide it in accordance with his own conception of the truth of the fa