Court Opinion

ID: 9446061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:45:00.58333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:30.398584
License: Public Domain

POPE, Circuit Judge.
I concur. The only problem that appears difficult to me is whether the trial court in assessing the damages was in, error in not applying literally the standard set forth in Lutfy v. R. D. Roper & Sons Motor Co., 57 Ariz. 495, 115 P.2d 161, 165.1 Instead of taking testimony as to the value of the ranch as it actually was, and the value it would have had had the representations been true, the trial court took a short cut by fixing this part of the damages as the cost of a new well.
It seems to me that the trial court was warranted in concluding that this would be the very minimum difference between the value of an irrigated ranch which the-purchasers thought they were buying,, and a dry ranch, or one nearly so, which the place turned out to be. I do not think that appellants have demonstrated any prejudice resulting to them from the-court’s method of calculation; that method finds support in Nunn v. Howard, 216 Ky. 685, 288 S.W. 678, and in McCormick on Damages, 1935 Ed., § 122.
Furthermore there is respectable authority which the Arizona courts would probably recognize that a person defrauded may recover as one of the-proximate results of misrepresentation expenses to which he has been put.2 A case holding proper the recovery of the expenses of repairing a building to make it rentable where the purchaser had bought the building falsely represented to be rentable but found not to be so, is Wood v. Niemeyer, 185 Cal. 526, 197 P. 795, 799.
*887It seems to me that the recovery of expenditures for the new well is within the principles of the Restatement of the Law of Torts, Vol. IV, § 919, as follows:
“(1) A person whose legally protected interests have been endangered by the tortious conduct of another is entitled to recover for expenditures reasonably made or harm suffered in a reasonable effort to avert the harm threatened.
“(2) A person who has already suffered injury by the tort of another is entitled to recover for expenditures reasonably made or harm suffered in a reasonable effort to avert further harm.”
As for the loss of crop, it seems to me that this was plainly a proximate result of misrepresentations and that the award on account thereof was proper.

. “The measure of the damages sustained by the purchaser where a purchase has been induced by fraud, is according to the weight of authority, the difference between the real value of the property purchased and the value which it would have had had the representations been true.”

. After discussing at length the various views as to the “benefit of the bargain” and the “out of pocket” rules, which he calls the “normal” measure of damages, Prosser states (“Law of Torts”, 2nd' Ed., p. 570) : “In addition to such a normal measure of damages under whatever rule the court may adopt, the plaintiff may recover for consequential damages,, such as personal injuries, damage to other property, or expenses to which he has. been put, provided that they are regarded as ‘proximate’ results of the misrepresentation.”