Court Opinion

ID: 9826626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 16:20:05.464377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:26:08.426007
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON PETITION TO REHEAR.
This cause was decided by us at the last term, and is now again before us on petitions to re-hear.
Appellants Taylor, et al., insist that they are entitled to recover damages for the detention of the land and mesne profits, and that the former replevin judgments for the saw logs do not bar these rights. This court had an impression when the decree was rendered that there was no damage other than the value of the trees, and the propositions of mesne profits, damages for waste and unlawful detention were not pressed other than that the replevin judgments were not res ad judicata. We did not intend to hold that the complainants were not entitled to recover for mesne profits and damages for waste and unlawful detention in cases of this kind, where the parties had prior litigation about the timber cut off of the land. We now expressly hold that complainants, in the event they are successful in the suit recover the land, may also recover mesne profits and damages for waste and for the unlawful detention of the land, as in other ordinary ejectment suits, the measure of damages being the difference between the value of the land when taken possession of by the defendant and when it was restored to the complainants, together with the rent while in the defendant’s possession, if the property had a rental value. Caruther’s History of a Lawsuit (5 Ed.), 137. The measure of damages for waste and injuries to the freehold is the diminished value of the land. However, the complainants will not recover from the defendant the value of the saw logs involved in the former replevin suits, and the loss of their value will not be taken into consideration in fixing the damages. Our former decree will be so modified, and to this extent the appellants’ petition for a rehearing is granted.
*315The defendant’s petition for a rehearing must be overruled for the reasons stated in our original opinion.
Fáw, P. J., and DeWitt, J., concur.