Court Opinion

ID: 9851904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:21:13.622062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:19.106350
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In its motion for rehearing, lessor makes references to the transcript where it is contended that evidence can be found specifically detailing amounts of damage sufficient to support the verdict of $12,225. The items pointed out are loss of rent for two and one-half months (while repairs were being made) at $850 per month— $2,125; cutting table — $1,500; general repairs, including painting, roofing, removing nails, tearing down hooks — $9,092.70; tearing off and re-raftering roof — $15,000.
As we pointed out in the main opinion, the evidence as to the roof was not sufficiently definite to establish a reasonable cost of repair or restoration since no allowance was made for replacing an old roof with a new roof, or for the lessor’s obligation to maintain it. The reference to the "general repair” evidence of $9,092.07 reveals that the witness was only identifying lessor’s exhibit 21, consisting of canceled checks totaling $9,092.07. As we previously noted in regard to this exhibit, it is impossible to tell which of these related to damage caused by the lessee and which did not. As we understand the evidence in regard to the long cutting table (for which appellee claims damages of $1,500), it was cut into four sections because lessee needed more space. This was done by lessor’s consent with the understanding that the table *105would be re-assembled at the termination of the lease, which lessee was in the process of doing when stopped by lessor because the materials being used were of an inferior quality. The evidence shows the original cost of the table to have been $1,015, but there is no evidence as to the cost of properly re-assembling it.
Lessor asserts that we are misconstruing Spacemaker, Inc. v. Borochoff Properties, Inc., 112 Ga. App. 512 (145 SE2d 740), under which the complaint was drawn and the case tried, and that the present opinion requires proof of the cost of patching each of hundreds of nail holes, etc., or requires a separate contract for each minute item of damage. Neither opinion so holds. What the Spacemaker case requires is that where, as here, the lessor claims a multitude of separate items of damage, some of which a jury might accept and others that it might reject, they must be furnished sufficient guidelines as to each item or group of similar items in order to arrive at a reasonable cost of repair or restoration for the items they find the lessor entitled to recover. A reading of the entire transcript reveals that this was not accomplished in the instant case.

Judgment adhered to.

Jordan, P. J., and Pannell, J., concur.