Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/478

 4:64 FEDERAL REPORTER. �advance in case of a rise in wages,) deliverable on cars at his works, at the rate of nine cars of 13 tons each per day on each working day during the year 1880. After 3,7(56 tons were delivered, Cochran, on February 13, 1880, notified the plaintiff that Ije had rescinded the contract, and thereafter delivered no cokei After Cochran's refusai further todeliver coke, the plaintiff madea substantially similarcoB- tract Tfith one Hutehinson for the delivery during the balance of- the year of 29,587 tons of Connellsville coke at, four dollars peri ton, which was the market rate for such a forward contract, and rather belo-w the market price for present deliveries on February 27, 1880, the date of; the Hutehinson contract. The plaintiff claimed to ,recover the difference between the price stipulated in. the contract sued on, and the price which the plaintiff agreed to pay Hutehinson under the contract of February 27, 1880, But the court refused to adopt this standard of damages, and instructed the jury that the plaintiff was "entitled to ireoover, upon the coke which John M. Oochran con- tracted to deliver and refused to deliver to the plaintiff, the sum of the difference between the contract price — that is, the price Cochran was to receive— and the market price of standard Connellsville coke, at the place of delivery, at the several dates when the several deliv- eries should have been made uudor the contract." Under this in- struction there was a verdict for the plaintiff, for $22,171.49. As the plaintiff had in its hands $1,521.10 coming to the defendant for coke delivered, the damages as found by the jury amounted to the Bum of $23,692.50, �The plaintiff moved the court for a new trial; and, in support of the motion, an earnest and certainly very able argument has been made by plaintiff's counsel. But we are not convinced that the instruction complained of was erroneous. �Undoubtedly it is well settled, as a general rule, that when con- tracta for the sale of chattels are broken by the vendor failing to deliver, the ineasure of damages is the difference between the contract price and the market value of the article at the time it should be delivered. Sedgwick on the Measure of Damages, f7th Ed.) 552. In Shepherd v. Hampton, 3 Wheat. 200, this rule was distinctly sanc- tioiied. Chief Justie.e Marshall there says : "The unanimous opin- ion of the court is that the priee of the article at the time it was to be delivered is the measure of damages." Id. 204. Nor does ihe case of Hopkins v. Lee, 6 Wheat. 118, promulgate a different doc^ trine ; for, elearly, "the time of the breach" there spoken of is the time when delivery should have been made under the contract. ��� �