Court Opinion

ID: 9695746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:28:29.972042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:15.913482
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I agree with the majority that appellee should pay damages for denying appellant the quiet enjoyment of the demised premises. However, I disagree in two respects with the majority’s instructions on remand.
1
The majority says that “the case must be remanded to determine appellants’ moving expenses, if any, and enter the same in judgment for appellants.” Majority opinion at p. 398. I assume, from the “if any,” that this means that the lower court is free on remand, either to enter judgment in the amount of the moving expenses appellants proved, or to say that because it does not (for some reason) accept that proof, it will enter judgment in a lesser amount or even for no amount at all. I do not think this fair to appellants. Appellants proved their moving expenses. The proof was not contradicted; the lower court simply ignored it. The least we should do is remand with instructions that judgment be entered for appellants in the amount of the moving expenses proved, specifically for $10,000.00.
2
The majority characterizes appellants’ proof of loss of anticipated profits as “too speculative to support an award of damages.” Majority opinion at p. 398.
While it is true that appellants had operated the business for only nine months before appellee started build*400ing the mall, their immediate predecessor had operated it for over a year. (R. 212a-216a.) Appellants presented evidence of the monthly receipts during their predecessor’s tenure. (Supp.R. 6b.) The business was therefore not “new and untried,” as the majority suggests it was. Majority opinion at p. 397.
The majority seems to reach its conclusion that the business was “new and untried” by a comparison of appellants’ business with the business described in Exton Drive-In, Inc. v. Home Indemnity Co., 436 Pa. 480, 261 A.2d 319 (1969), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 819, 91 S.Ct. 36, 27 L.Ed.2d 46 (1970). Such a comparison leads me to an opposite conclusion. In Exton the business had never been in operation before the time of the alleged breach of contract. Thus appellants’ business has been operated twenty-three months longer than that in Exton; I suggest that is sufficient to remove it from the category of “new and untried.” The majority also cites Guady v. Seaman, 188 Pa.Super. 475, 149 A.2d 523 (1959). There we held that testimony as to lost profits was admissible when based on three periods of actual operation of the business in question: eight and one-half months at a first location; two weeks and “two or three days” at the location where the defendant-lessor allegedly breached his duty to supply water; and an indefinite period of time (from sometime in 1954 until the time of trial) at a third location. The present case thus falls between the poles of Exton and Guady. For me, it is closer to Guady than to Exton. I would therefore hold that appellants presented sufficient proof of lost profits.
Finally, if in fact the basis for the accountant’s projections was inadequate, the fault was largely appellee’s. The majority says, “No foundation is laid for the assumption that the business would increase annually ..” Majority opinion at p. 398. A foundation could have been laid if appellee had not within less than a year entirely, and in the most high-handed way, altered *401the situation within which the business was conducted. Proof of anticipated profits need only be to a reasonable degree of certainty. “Compensation for breach of contract cannot be justly refused because proof of the exact amount of loss is not produced, for there is judicial recognition of the difficulty or even impossibility of the production of such proof. What the law does require . is that the evidence shall with a fair degree of probability establish a basis for the assessment of damages.” Massachusetts Bonding & Insurance Co. v. Johnston & Harder, Inc., 343 Pa. 270, 280, 22 A.2d 709, 714 (1941) (emphasis added); see also Restatement of Contracts § 331(1) (1932). Where the proof has been made more difficult by the party causing the loss, there should be some relaxation in the degree of certainty required. Otherwise the wrongdoer is enabled to profit from his own misconduct — a result to be avoided. Cf. Restatement of Contracts § 315 (breach by preventing or hindering performance by the other party).
In my opinion, the fairest way to handle this case would be to remand for a new trial limited to damages. We regularly do that in other cases where the liability has been clearly established but the damages awarded are clearly inadequate. Rosen v. Slough, 212 Pa.Super. 398, 402, 242 A.2d 898, 900 (1968). I would do it here.