Shearer v. Park Nursery Co.
Shearer v. Park Nursery Co.
Opinion of the Court
The defendant being a corporation engaged in the business of raising and selling nursery fruit-trees, the plaintiff, on March 7, 1891, ordered from it five hundred nursery peach-trees of specified varieties, namely, two hundred Susquehanna, two hundred Muir, and one hundred Solway, and thereupon defendant sold and delivered to plaintiff five hundred young trees at the price of twenty cents apiece, representing them to be of the varieties and in the proportions ordered, and so labeled them. The plaintiff did not know, and had no means of ascertaining, whether or not the trees were such as ordered, until after he had planted them and had cultivated them about two years, when they first bore fruit, and therefore relied solely upon the representations of the defendant as to the varieties of the trees. When the trees first bore fruit it appeared that two hundred and sixty-eight of them were of a different and inferior variety from either of those ordered, and were of a kind that plaintiff did not desire, and which, when planted, occupied about two and one-half acres of plaintiff’s land.
The object of this action was to recover damages alleged to have been suffered by plaintiff in consequence of a breach of the warranty that the trees were of the kinds ordered.
The judgment was in favor of plaintiff for three hundred and fifty dollars, from which, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial, the defendant appeals.
The principal point contended for by appellant is that the court did not measure the damages by the proper rule, which they say is that expressed by section 3313 of the Civil Code, as follows:
“ The detriment caused by the breach of the warranty of the quality of personal property is deemed to be the excess, if any, of the value which the property would have had at the time to which the warranty referred, if it had been complied with, over its actual value at that time.”
But since it seems probable that cases of the class specified in section 3313 of the Civil Code may occur in which the breach and the discovery thereof are widely separate in point of time, the only reasonable construction of that section which may have a uniformly just effect is, that the time to which the warranty refers is the time when the breach thereof is, or with due diligence might be, discovered by the purchaser.
The action of the trial court in admitting evidence against the objections of defendant was consistent with this construction. The sole effect of such.evidence was to prove the difference between the value of trees of the kinds ordered by plaintiff and the trees actually delivered by defendant at the time when those delivered first bore fruit, that being the earliest date at which plaintiff discovered, or could have discovered, the breach of the warranty. It was, however, to the mode of proving this difference of values that defendant more specially objected, which was: 1. To prove the value of the land occupied by the trees at the time the breach of warranty
It is strenuously contended that the allowance of any evidence of the value of the land was material error, for which the judgment should be reversed. But since growing fruit-trees are a part of the land, and probably of no value when severed from it (Montgomery v. Locke, 72 Cal. 75), it was proper to prove how much the different kinds of trees added to the value of the land; and the difference between the value thus added by the trees delivered and the value that would have been added if the trees ordered had been planted instead of ihose seems to be the measure of plaintiff’s damage, .according to section 3313 of the Civil Code. “It is settled in New York,” says Mr. Sutherland (Sutherland on Damages, sec. 1019), “that where fruit-trees are destroyed or injured, and their owner asserts his right to go beyond their value after severance from the land, so as to obtain compensation for the damage done the latter, his recovery is measured by the difference between the value of the land before and after the injury.” (Citing Dwight v. Elmira etc. R. R. Co., 132 N. Y. 199; 28 Am. St. Rep. 563.)
- On the assumption that the mode of proof was not materially erroneous, the findings of fact are justified by the evidence.
I think the judgment and order should be affirmed.
Searls, C., and Belcher, C., concurred.
For the reasons given in the foregoing opinion, the judgment and order appealed from are affirmed.
McFarland, J., Fitzgerald, J., Harrison, J.
Hearing in Bank denied.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- J. C. SHEARER v. PARK NURSERY COMPANY
- Cited By
- 27 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Sale of Fruit-trees to be Planted—Breach of Warranty of Quality—Time of Fruit-bearing—Measure of Damages.—Upon a sale of nursery fruit trees to be planted, which were warranted to be of certain specified varieties, and in the proportions ordered, many of which were first discovered to be of a different and inferior variety from either of those ordered, and of a kind which the purchaser did not desire, about two years after they had been planted and cultivated, when they began to bear fruit, the detriment caused by the breach of the warranty is the excess of the value which the trees would have had at the time when the trees first bore fruit, if the warranty had been complied with, over their actual value at that time. Id.—Construction of Code—Breach of Warranty—Time to Which Warranty Refers—Discovery of Breach.—In section 3313 of the Civil Code, which provides that “the detriment caused by the breach of the warranty of the quality of personal property is deemed to be the excess, if any, of the value which the property would have had at the time to which the warranty referred, if it had been complied with, over its actual value at that time,” the time to which the warranty of quality, in the sense of this section, refers, is not necessarily the time of the completion of the sale by delivery of the property, nor the time of the breach of the warranty, but is the time when the breach is discovered, or with ordinary care and attention might be discovered, by the purchaser. Id.—Fruit-trees Part of Land—Evidence—Value of Land.—Growing fruit-trees are a part of the land, and probably of no value when severed from it; and evidence of the value of the land is admissible in an action for breach of warranty of quality of such trees, and it is proper to prove how much the different kinds of trees added to the value of the land. Id.—Measure of Damages—Difference in Value of Land.—The difference between the value added to the land by the trees delivered and the value that would have been added if the trees ordered had been planted instead of those delivered is the measure of plaintiff’s damages according to section 3313 of the_ Civil Code.