Court Opinion

ID: 9564051
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:53:41.36292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:12.080071
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
This case does not involve several witnesses giving their opinion as to various amounts of damages; so there is no basis to affirm the findings of fact as being within the range of evidence. Instead there is one witness giving his testimony as to damages and the issue is simply whether that testimony was sufficient to sustain the amount awarded. Our determination involves the correct measure of damages which the majority opinion has accurately stated. The disagreement arises from the majority’s summary application of those principles to the instant facts.
Having essentially laid the foundation for the recovery of damages resulting from the breach, plaintiff needed only to attach some relevant figures regarding the costs of production and costs of material purchased, less the amounts received from salvage or other utilization of such materials, but it did not do so. Instead, Demico then attempted to take a percentage of the balance remaining of the unpaid order, which the summary listed incorrectly as $68,772.52 (it should have been $67,772.52). The figure utilized was 62-1/2% by which the $68,772.52 was “discounted” to arrive at the sum of $25,820 owed from the remainder of both orders which coincidentally was the same figure reached by taking 70% of 850 PAC units at $36 per unit and adding $4,400 for PA-2 units.
The difficulty with this approach is that the percentages offered demonstrated no relation to the damages Demico suffered other than as unexplained approximation. Unfortunately, there is no discernible reason for using 70% of one order or a discount of 62-V2% of the *780entire order. Any other percent could just as easily have been used with the same justification because the evidence here provides no grounds for the purely arbitrary percentage selected.
Decided July 15, 1986.
Charles F. Reeves, for appellant.
John H. Watson, Frederick Warren III, for appellee.
Moreover, it is clear plaintiff was using one measure when it invoiced the defendant and another measure when it actually tried to establish damages. Evidently the purpose was to arrive at a certain predetermined figure, $25,820.
In this case, as in others, the plaintiff need not establish his damages with mathematical precision. What must be done, however, is that the numbers must bear some relation to the proper measure of damages where, as here, the plaintiff either from choice or necessity did not proceed under the contract but sought recovery as provided by law.
I would reverse for consideration of the proper amount of damages.
I am authorized to state that Judge Carley joins in this dissent.