Court Opinion

ID: 9641657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:37:16.988419+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:38.994444
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
Both plaintiff and defendant by motion have requested a rehearing or in the alternative a transfer of this appeal to the supreme court. Defendant principally re-argues his contention that the cause was not a submissible one, and plaintiff re-argues his contention that his Instruction No. 5 was not a misdirection requiring a reversal. We do not find anything in either motion that would call for such action.
Plaintiff suggests our opinion is subject to the interpretation that a defrauded party, who elects to keep the chattel sold to him, is limited to general damages only; namely, the difference between the value of the chattel if as represented and its actual value. We recognize the *56broad general rule as stated in 37 C.J.S. Fraud § 141, pp. 465-66, that in cases of fraud or deceit the defendant is responsible for those results, injurious to plaintiff, which must be presumed to have been within his contemplation at the time of the commission of the fraud, and plaintiff may recover damages for any injury which is the direct and natural consequence of his acting on the faith of defendant’s representations. A defrauded party is not limited to general damages, but may also recover special damages which have proximately resulted from the fraud. However, it remains the duty of the court to properly instruct the jury as to the measure of damages applicable under the issues and the evidence of the particular case. The fact that language used in an instruction may be found in the reasoning or conclusions of an appellate court, or of a law textbook, does not make it proper language for an instruction. Anderson v. Glascock, Mo. App., 271 S.W.2d 243; I Raymond, Missouri Instructions, Sec. 68, page 19 pocket part. The test of the correctness of an instruction is how the instruction will be naturally understood by the average men who compose our juries. Knapp v. Hanley, Mo.App., 153 Mo.App. 169, 132 S.W. 747. If the instruction is of such a nature as to give the jury a roving commission and the resultant amount of damages allowed by the jury is clearly contrary to the evidence, the verdict must be set aside. 37 C.J.S. Fraud § 152, p. 496.
This record does not contain any evidence of special damages, not speculative in nature, that occurred prior to plaintiff’s discovery of the alleged fraud and which would be the proper basis of an instruction on the measure of damages including special damages. Thus, we remain convinced that in the instant case under its particular facts the proper measure of actual damages was the difference between the actual value of the cow and its value if it had been as represented. The jury should have been so instructed.
The motions are overruled.