Court Opinion

ID: 9826485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 15:59:44.093275+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:04.619122
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Fraser:
I dissent. The owner is entitled to compensation and damages. He is entitled to what he lost by the taking. In July, when the land was actualfy taken, the amount of his loss could not have been ascertained with exactness. The rule of the best evidence allowed an estimate of the amount of cotton that would have been raised, and the expense of preparing the crop for market. The price when gathered was pure guess in July. In the fall, when the case was tried, the price was no longer a guess, but had become a certainty. The loss was the price the owner did not get in the fall when the cotton matured. The cotton itself was worth nothing in July. Cotton is not a forage crop, and its market value in July was nothing. There was no cotton, only the plant, in July, and the plant was of no value. It was therefore necessary to merely estimate what it would be in the fall. There was no. other way to arrive at the amount of cotton destroyed. Having arrived at the amount of cotton destroyed, or rather the amount of cotton that would have been made by the best-known and available method, the question remained as to the price. There was no way to tell what the price would be in the fall, and the parties were shut up to the July price. The estimate of the amount of cotton to be made was transferred in estimate to the fall. Why not the price also if the fall price could have been estimated also. Let us suppose that the owner had sold his cotton for fall delivery at the price it actually reached in the fall. Then the taking prevented the' owner from delivering at the fall price. No one could doubt that the contract price was the measure of his damages. In the case supposed, you fix the damages by the price *62he would háve received. I see no difference in principle in the case before us. It seems to me that if we are bound by a hard and fast rule to estimate the damages as of the time of the taking, then the owner cannot be allowed anything for his lost cotton, for no cotton was taken. I think the fall price when the cotton would have been ready for market, now a certainty, fixes the amount of his damages. For these reasons I dissent.