Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/701

 to establish a market value for such hides. Accordingly the measure of loss in the price sustained is the difference between the contract price and the market price of the hides on May 18, 1920. 35 Cyc. 594; 22 C. J. 187, 190.

The market value of hides on May 18, 1920, was the Chicago market, jess freight. The plaintiffs attempted to establish this market value through the market reports made by a publishing company. The testimony of one of the plaintiffs so attempting to establish the. market value on May 18, 1920, is based upon information received from this publishing company. The market reports of this publishing company would be competent evidence to establish market value, provided they were trustworthy and representative of transactions actually consummated or proposed in good faith and obtained from authoritative or reliable sources in the usual course of business. Wigmore on Evidence, vol. 3, § 1704; 22 C. J. 188; Houston Packing Co. v. Griffith (Tex. Civ. App.) 164 S. W. 431. See Fountain v. Wabash Ry. Co., 114 Mo. App. 676, 90 S. W. 393; Fairley v. Smith, 87 N. C. 367, 42 Am. Rep. 522. No testimony was afforded in the record to show that these market reports were trustworthy. The plaintiffs offered to produce, but did not produce, such reports. If produced, upon the record, insufficient foundation was laid for their admission. A fortiori the direct testimony of one of the plaintiffs of the market value of the hides on May 18, 1920, based on such market reports, was incompetent. Wigmore on Evidence, vol. 1, § 717.

Likewise the testimony of private sales made before or after May 18, 1920, were incompetent to establish the market value of the hides on May 18, 1920, unless made at a time sufficiently near and under conditions sufficiently similar, to be corroborative of the market value of hides attempted to be proved on such date. 22 C. J. 188, 190; 24 R. C. L. 74.

Judgment must be reversed, and a new trial granted.

It is so ordered.

, C. J., and, , and , J.J., concur.