Court Opinion

ID: 9832822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:13:36.639704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:53.323207
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[4] One point raised in the motion for rehearing'was not presented on original hearing or discussed in the opinion heretofore rendered; that is, it is now contended that there is no allegation or proof that the plaintiff was actually damaged by the breach of the contract, and that such allegation and proof are necessary to a recovery. It is a fact that there is no allegation of actual damage flowing from the breach of tile contract. The plaintiff’s right to recover the $10,000, deposited with the bank was based on the agreement that such sum should be paid him as damages in case of breach of the contract by the defendants. There was proof that at the time of the tender of the assignment of the lease the value of the lease was much less than at the time of the contract and less than the contract price; but, if pleading of damage were necessary, the petition was subject to general demurrer, and proof would not supply the lack of pleading. So it becomes necessary to examine the proposition urged. We construe the contract to evidence an intention that, in ease of breach by the vendee, the $10,000 deposited in the bank should be paid to the vendor as liquidated damages. Eakin v. Scott, 70 Tex. 442, 7 S. W. 777; Reinhardt v. Borders, 184 S. W. 791. In such case it is unnecessary for the plaintiff, in order to recover the stipulated sum, to allege and show that actual damages were sustained and the amount thereof. In the case of Eakin v. 'Scott, supra, it was agreed on the trial that no actual damages were sustained from the breach, and yet the plaintiff was held to be entitled to recover the stipulated damages.
We do not think the case of Collier v. Betterton, 87 Tex. 440, 29 S. W. 467, which| is relied on by appellees to support their proposition, sustains them in such matter. The Supreme Court in that case, after having-stated that, “although the parties to a contract have named a specified sum of money as liquidated damages for its breach, the courts may in certain cases treat the provision as a penalty, and restrict the recovery to the actual damages which have accrued,” attempts to lay down the rules under which this apparent intention of the parties, as expressed in the contract, may be disregarded ; and it is first said that, “if the damages be in their very nature uncertain, or the amount indeterminate, the sum specified will be treated as fixing by stipulation the amount of the recovery,” and the court then proceeds to discuss the rule, “in cases in which the damages are reasonably capable of ascertainment,” and announces this conclusion in reference thereto:
“Therefore the principle would seem to he that; although a sum be,named ‘as liquidated damages,’ the courts will not so treat it, unless it bear such proportion to the actual damages that it may reasonably be presumed to have been arrived at upon a fair estimation by the parties of the compensation to be paid for the prospective loss. If the supposed stipulation greatly exceed the actual loss, if there be no approximation between them, and this be made to appear by the evidence, then, it se'ems to ns, and then only, should the actual damages be the measure of the recovery.”
*914This means, we take it, that the party who seeks to defeat the terms of the contract providing for the payment of a stated sum of money, as agreed damages, should make it appear that the damages which the parties contemplated might result from the breach of the contract were “reasonably capable of ascertainment,” and that there was “no approximation” between such contemplated actual damages and the agreed damages fixed by the contract. This conception of the decision has been applied by the Oourts of Civil Appeals in a number of later cases, in some of which writs of error were denied by the Supreme Court. Halff v. O’Connor, 14 Tex. Civ. App. 191, 37 S. W. 241; Reinhardt v. Borders, 184 S. W. 791; Kaufman v. Christian-Wathen Lumber Co., 184 S. W. 1048 (5); Dilley & Son v. Wise, 160 S.W. 986. No other construction óf the meaning of the decision can harmonize it with the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Eakin v. Scott, supra, and the opinions in both of these cases were Written by the same judge.
The other matters presented in the motion for rehearing were carefully considered on original submission of the case.
The motion for rehearing will be overruled.