Court Opinion

ID: 9685218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:26:23.449857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:03.366514
License: Public Domain

On Second Rehearing
LE BLANC, Justice.
Availing itself of the right reserved to it, the defendant applied for and was *649granted a rehearing, limited however, to the issue of the amount of damages.
There are three issues to be considered in disposing of this rehearing: (1) Is the plaintiff restricted to the amount of damages prayed for in its supplemental 'petition which is smaller than that demanded and prayed for in its original petition ? (2) Was there a market for scrap iron material in the Shreveport area at the time of the breach of the contract which could have been used in determining the market value on which the damages for the breach can be fixed? (3) Assuming there was no Shreveport market and that the damages have to be based on the quotations of the Pittsburg market, less freight costs and charges, has the Pittsburg market as of the date of the breach, March 9, 1949, been proved?
Taking up these points in the order just presented, regarding the first it is hardly necessary to have to state that a plaintiff cannot recover a greater amount than what he prays for. That is elementary. In this case, plaintiff originally sought specific performance of the contract sued on and, in the alternative, it alleged damages for breach of the contract in the sum of $12,-250. Inadvertently, we presume, the amount prayed for was $12,500. A question was then presented under the pleadings concerning the actual date on which the breach occurred. In a second supplemental petition, filed with leave of court, it alleged, in one of several alternatives, that if the breach occurred on March 9, 1949, it was “damaged in the amount of the difference between the contract price of $41 per ton and the market value to the plaintiff for $28.28 per ton, amounting to $12.72 per ton or a total damage of $6,360 on the 500 tons specified in the contract,” and it prayed accordingly. In a third supplemental petition it asked for judgment “as prayed for in the original petition as the same has been amended and supplemented.”
As this Court has definitely and finally fixed the date of breach as of March 9, 1949, the award necessarily has to be limited to the amount prayed for as for breach on that date unless, as counsel for plaintiff now contend, the amendment to the petition and its prayer was forced on it by an order of court and, besides, the pleadings were enlarged by the introduction and admission of evidence without objection.
There is no merit to the point that because the amendment to the petition and the prayer were made in compliance with an order of Court plaintiff is not bound by that prayer. A plaintiff is always required to specify the damages he claims and to state exactly what they consist of and how the amount is arrived at. This is all that the plaintiff was properly required to do in this case. It supplied the necessary allegations and has to be held to them and to its prayer made in accordance with them.
 Neither is there any merit to the contention that the pleadings have been en*651larged by the admission of unobjected to testimony. The rule on this point, as stated in City of Shreveport v. Chatwin, 139 La. 531, 71 So. 791, 792, is that “evidence received without objection enlarges pleadings only when it would not have been admissible if objected to”. That rule governs this case as certainly evidence regarding the Pittsburg market, less freight, was admissible even over objection, to show market value as of March 9, 1949, the date of breach.
We are convinced that plaintiff, if entitled to damages, is limited to the amount of $6360 as prayed for in its supplemental petition.
Taking up now the second point to be Considered, we might say, without entering into a lengthy discussion of the testimony that whatever proof there is to show sales of scrap iron material in and around Shreveport, it is far from sufficient to show any established market for that commodity in that area. Just a few sporadic sales with only one substantial dealer in a given area is not sufficient to create a market 'in the sense in which that term is here to be applied. The preponderance of the testimony is that the recognized market for the country is the Pittsburg market and the quotations of that market, less the freight charges from the point of shipment-to Pittsburg, are the accepted market quotations.
On the third point mentioned, counsel for defendant maintain that plaintiff did not prove what the Pittsburg market was on March 9, 1949, the date of the breach. They point out that it endeavored to prove the quotations of that market by introducing in evidence issues of The Iron Age Magazine, the trade journal in the iron and steel industry, which is correct, but that whereas issues beginning with that of Fébruary 3, 1949 and ending with that of April 21, 1949, were offered.and introduced, it failed to supply the issue of March 9, 1949. True it is that the issue of that date was not introduced but the one of March 10, 1949 was, and as the market quotations carried in a trade journal or a newspaper on a given date are usually 'the quotations of the day previous we are satisfied that the market price of March 9, 1949 as fixed in the'opinion on first rehearing, which are those quoted in The Iron Age of March 10, 1949, are correct and were properly accepted as the market value on which to determine the amount of damages in this case. Notwithstanding this however, the decree, by oversight, awarded the plaintiff more than it had prayed for and it will have to be amended accordingly.
For the reasons stated it is ordered that the judgment and decree rendered by this court on the first rehearing be amended by reducing the amount of the award from the sum of $8662.40 to the sum of $6360 and that as thus amended the said judg*653ment and" decree are hereby reinstated and made final.
HAMITER and HAWTHORNE, JJ., dissent.