Opinion ID: 1643072
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Proper Measure of Damages Is Fair Market Value.

Text: In the text associated with this argument, the News only once cites its briefs on original submission, and it cites pages 106-08 of its initial brief. Those pages were included in the section of that brief captioned III. The Panel's Decision is Arbitrary, Capricious, and Irrational. We declined to entertain the ground that the panel's decision was arbitrary, capricious, and irrational, explaining in detail why we rejected it. 901 So.2d at 52-54. Section II of that brief was headed II. The Panel's Decision Should Be Vacated Because The Panel Manifestly Disregarded Alabama Law. For the reason we explained in our opinion, we entertained and applied the manifest disregard of the law ground of review. All that the News actually argued at pages 106-08 of its initial brief was the proposition that [a]n award of both future lost profits and the lost value of each of the appellees' businesses is plainly duplicative. It is true that, after citing Albrecht v. Herald Co., 452 F.2d 124 (8th Cir.1971), in support of that argument, the News quoted from Albrecht the statement, quoting in turn Simpson v. Union Oil Co. of Cal., 411 F.2d 897 (9th Cir.1969), that the proper measure of damage was the market value of the business; that quote, however, was not submitted in the context of an argument that market value was the only or the preferred approach to measuring damages. Rather, as the News summed up in the last two paragraphs of that segment of its argument, the statement from Albrecht (quoting Simpson ) was offered only in support of the argument that to award both lost value and lost profits would be duplicative. We agreed with the News on that point, it having been adequately cast in the News's initial brief as an instance where Alabama law prohibiting double recovery [being] clear and long standing, the panel disregarded the law in awarding duplicative damages. We pointed out, however: Beyond arguing the impropriety of allowing a `double recovery' of both the loss of franchise value and the loss of future profits, however, the News makes no argument concerning which of those two recoveries should be disallowed. It does not argue that either method of calculating damages is invalid under the circumstances. 901 So.2d at 65. We explained why, under the circumstances, we felt obliged to allow the loss of future profits measure of damages to survive the elimination process, rather than the loss of franchise [i.e., market] value approach. 901 So.2d at 62-66. The News now argues for the first time that we should have chosen the fair-market-value approach on the basis of the intent of the panel, which it says we should have discerned from the fact that the dissenting arbitrator selected fair-market value as the appropriate measure of damages, thus making that measure of damages the only one agreed by all three arbitrators to be a proper component of damages. Because this argument was never presented on original submission, we will not consider it on rehearing.