Case Name: Hannah Hardin and others vs. John Kennedy
Court: Constitutional Court of South Carolina
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1822-11
Citations: 2 McCord 277
Docket Number: 
Parties: Hannah Hardin and others vs. John Kennedy.
Judges: .Justices Huger, Nott and Richardson, concurred.
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 13
Pages: 277–278

Head Matter:
Hannah Hardin and others vs. John Kennedy.
In an action of trespass to et arms, for breaking and entering the plaintiff’s close and removing his,fence, the necessary and unavoidable consequence of which was the loss of his crop, the court held the plaintiff might prove the loss of his crop to enhance damages.
TRIED at Chester, August Special Term, 1822.
Trespass vi et armis, for breaking and entering the plaintiff’s close and taking away and removing 250 panel of fence, enclosing a field of seventeen acres. The plaintiff had a verdict.
The trespass was committed in December, and the only ground relied on for a new trial, on the part of the defendant, was that the court permitted evidence to go to the jury with a view to aggravate the damages, that the plaintiff lost the crop of the succeeding year in consequence of the removal of the fence.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Johnson
delivered the opinion of the court:
No objection was made in the court below or here, as to the admissibility of the evidence in reference to the form, of the declaration. I take it for granted, therefore, that there is nothing in the proceedings which precludes it, if damages for the loss of the crop could be recovered in an action of trespass vi et armis. The argument in support of the motion proceeded on the ground that those damages were the subject of a special action on the case, and not trespass vi et armis. In this view of the . subject, the point made, contains a proposition so self-evidpnt that I find it difficult to illustrate it; for if in the action of trespass vi et armis, a plaintiff can recover damages at all, it follows of necessity, that the injury which is the immediate consequence, is that which is to be redressed. If it ivere otherwise, most casos of trespass would be damnum absque injuria, and no action would lie.
Clarke, for the motion.
Williams, contra.
It is not intended in the application of this principle to the present case, to advance the idea that the defendant would have beer. liable to damages resulting from all the remote consequences of the trespass, but that he is liable for the loss of the crop, if that was the necessary and unavoidable consequence of his removing the fence. Whether it was or not, was a question fairly submitted to the jury under this view of the law ; and their finding is conclusive.
The motion is refused.
.Justices Huger, Nott and Richardson, concurred.
Justice Colcock dissented.