Court Opinion

ID: 9722218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:20:59.411243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:32.200078
License: Public Domain

Murphy, District Judge,
concurring in the result.
I do not disagree with the result reached here, but I am unable to agree with much of what is said in arriving at the result, and I am concerned about inferences which might be drawn from the opinion.
The general rule regarding damages to soil of the nature involved herein is that their proper measure is any difference between the before-and-after values. Hunt v. Chicago, B. & Q. R.R. Co., 180 Neb. 375, 143 N. W. 2d 263; Beveridge v. Miller-Binder, Inc., 177 Neb. 734, 131 N. W. 2d 155; Applegate v. Platte Valley P. P. & Irr. Dist., 136 Neb. 280, 285 N. W. 585. I do not agree that the petition alleges a cause of action ex contractu rather than ex delicto is necessarily material. Quest v. East Omaha Drainage Dist., 155 Neb. 538, 52 N. W. 2d 417. This case is distinguishable, however, from Beveridge v. Miller-Binder, Inc., supra, by virtue of the substance of the contract herein involved, as hereinafter discussed.
Here the jury was instructed that, before plaintiff could recover, he was required to prove: “That the parties entered into a valid agreement by the terms of which the defendant was to refill the excavated area on plaintiffs property with clean, well-compacted soil and thereby to restore the land to its original condition.” (Emphasis added.) It is important to note also that the contract involved did not contemplate any improvement to or upon plaintiffs land, but constituted only the grant of a temporary license or easement to defendant. The instruction defining the measure of damages was consistent with that burden of proof. Plaintiff was entitled *135to recover for the loss of his bargain, rather than simply the damages done to his real estate.
I fear the opinion is subject, at least by reasonable implication, to extension to fact situations far beyond those here. A measure of damages based upon the redoing of all that was done is, I submit, inconsistent with substantial performance doctrines or theories. I am not inclined to believe that, in an ordinary “construction contract” case, evidence of damages similar to that adduced by the plaintiff in this case would warrant submission of the case to the jury, regardless of what may have occurred during the course of an instructions conference.
In my view of the case plaintiff must be considered to have met his burden of pleading and proving an appropriate and reasonable measure of reasonable damages only in light of the somewhat peculiar nature of the case and the favorable jury verdict. Any disparity between the difference between the before-and-after value and the cost of restoration would have been material to the reasonableness of the measure of damages. Evidence of an offer to sell real estate is not, however, sufficient evidence of the value of the real estate to raise that factual issue.