Court Opinion

ID: 9726727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:05:21.902677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:30.097217
License: Public Domain

VOGEL, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
I cannot conclude that the damages in this case are so excessive and without support in the evidence that we are justified in substituting our judgment for that of the jury. If this case involved an issue such as the value of wheat or a new automobile, or any other question as to the amount of damages subject to precise determination, and if the jury had given an award far in excess of the correct amount, I would agree that we could grant a remittitur. But here we are dealing with damages affecting the career of a professional man for years to come. In such an area, the range of permissible verdicts is much wider, and we should be most reluctant to second-guess juries.
This case is further complicated by the fact that the plaintiff attempted to prove damages to his professional future because of the nonrenewal of his teaching contract, but the trial court did not allow him to do so. He made an offer of proof that he was unable to obtain employment in any of the fifty or so colleges he applied to, that his unemployability in any college was due, in his opinion, to the wrongful nonrenewal of his contract by Jamestown College, and that he was thereby damaged in the sum of $10,000 to $12,000. I believe that this offer of proof was proper, although the trial court rejected it, and the evidence should have been admitted.
All in all, I believe that the evidence received was sufficient to justify the verdict, giving full scope to the wide range of discretion permitted the jury in fixing damages, and that the verdict was not excessive (particularly in view of the error in disallowing the offer of proof), and I conclude that this is not one of the cases (which should be very rare) where we should substitute our judgment for that of a jury.
Incidentally, I do not entirely agree with the comments in the majority opinion on special damages. The test of allowability of damages in contract cases is that of reasonable anticipation. Our statute allows damages “which in the ordinary course of things would be likely to result” from the breach of contract. Sec. 32-03-09, N.D. C.C. I believe that expenses of seeking new employment, travel to the site of the new employment, the additional expense of commuting at that site, and even inability to find college employment, with consequent loss of status involved in having to begin work anew at the high-school level, *762are all general damages reasonably to be anticipated, and are not “special” damages. Since our early cases on the pleading of special damages were decided, we have adopted rules of procedure which permit the utmost generality in pleading and allow defendants to acquire detailed information by the use of the discovery procedures if they choose to do so. I believe that the complaint in this case used appropriate language, that the defendant could have obtained an itemization of damages by discovery but did not do so, and that Rule 9(g), N.D.R.Civ.P., does not apply.
I would affirm.
PAULSON, J., concurs.