Case Name: Gleason against Pinney
Court: New York Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1825-10
Citations: 5 Cow. 152
Docket Number: 
Parties: Gleason against Pinney.
Judges: 
Reporter: Cowen's Reports
Volume: 5
Pages: 152–153

Head Matter:
Gleason against Pinney.
in an action certain sunTof money, payable in specific articles, at a theta“umPricxpressed, not the value of the articles, is the true measure of damages.
On error to the Onondaga C. P. The action in the court helo vv was assumpsit, hy Pinney against Gleason, upon several notes, due at different times, in this form : 7
“ For value received, I promise to to pay John Pinney, seventy-nine dollars, fifty cents, on the first day of August, 1822, in salt, at fourteen shillings per barrel, in good boat- . ’ ’ . , _ „ b „ ’ b mg order. Liverpool, June 30th, 1820.
Ara Gleason.”
On these several notes, if the sum due upon them was calculated in the dollars and cents expressed, with interest, the balance due to the plaintiff below, at the time of the trial, (May, 1824,) over and above the defendant’s payments and set-off proved upon the trial, would have been $87 60; but if the sum due upon the notes was calculated at the cash value of the salt, when they respectively became due, with interest to the time of the trial, then no balance would have been due to the plaintiff below; but the verdict should have been for the defendant.
These facts being found specially by the jury, the court below rendered judgment for the plaintiff, for the $87 60, with costs. 9
The only question, now, on error was, whether the money, or the value of the salt, was the proper measure of damages.
B. D. Noxon, for the plaintiff in error.
S. Beardsley, contra,
cited Brooks v. Hubbard, (3 Con. Rep. N. S. 58.)

Opinion:
Curia, per Savage, Ch. J.
The Court of Common Pleas adopted the true measure of damages. The defendant below acknowledged, by his several notes, the amount of the debt due in dollars and cents. The delivery of the salt was the mere mode of payment. He might have avoided the payment of the whole sum by this delivery; hut not having done so, he should not be discharged by paying less than the debt which he has agreed to be due. This precise question was very fully considered in Brooks v. Hubbard, cited by the counsel for the defendant in error ; and the rule acted upon in this case, hoi den to he the correct one. The same rule was recognized by this Court, in Smith v. Smith, (2 John. Rep. 235, 243.) The judgment must he affirmed.
Judgment affirmed,