Caseflicks

Supreme Court of Arkansas • 1944

Lamkins v. International Harvester Co.

182 S.W.2d 203 | 207 Ark. 637 | 1944 Ark. LEXIS 715

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Takeaway

In short, this case requires more than notice of a buyer's special needs: consequential damages require proof that the seller agreed, at least tacitly, to assume that unusual risk, plus proof of damages under the correct legal measure.

Background

Lamkins orally agreed in December 1941 to buy a tractor and related farm equipment from Gay Lacy, an International Harvester dealer. He traded in horses and an old tractor and agreed to pay the remaining balance through a title-retaining note. Delivery, initially expected around March 1942 because tractors were scarce, did not occur until after May 1.

The delivered tractor lacked a starter and lighting equipment. Lamkins testified that he initially refused to sign the note and sales papers, but signed after Lacy promised to furnish that equipment within three weeks. Government priority regulations delayed the equipment. In November 1942, Lacy obtained it and asked Lamkins to bring the tractor to the shop for installation; Lamkins refused because he feared the dealer would retain the tractor for a past-due installment. The equipment was eventually installed after suit began.

International Harvester, which had received the note by assignment, brought replevin. Lamkins counterclaimed against both the company and Lacy, seeking a $450 setoff for crop losses allegedly caused by his inability to operate the tractor at night for forty-five days. He claimed that without lights and a starter he could not plant and cultivate twenty-five acres of soybeans. The trial court held that the evidence did not support submitting special damages to the jury, directed a verdict for the seller on the note and interest, and dismissed Lamkins's cross-complaint.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether Lamkins could recover consequential damages for lost crop opportunities caused by the delayed delivery of the tractor's starter and lighting equipment.

Holding

No. The evidence did not show that the dealer, when the sales contract was made, expressly or tacitly assumed liability for Lamkins's claimed crop losses.

Reasoning

Arkansas follows the rule that a buyer may sometimes recover consequential damages for delayed delivery, but only when the seller knew of the special circumstances at or before formation of the sales contract and at least tacitly agreed to bear the particular risk those circumstances created. Knowledge acquired after the purchase price is fixed cannot impose that enlarged liability on the seller.

Even accepting Lamkins's testimony that he told Lacy he wanted lights so that he could work at night on nearly 200 acres, that notice was insufficient. Nothing in the proof showed that Lacy was told, or reasonably understood, that he would be liable for several hundred dollars in crop losses if a $20 lighting accessory was delayed.

The written note and equipment order did not state that the tractor had been delivered without lights or a starter, that nighttime cultivation was essential, or that the seller would bear crop-loss damages. Nor was there an express agreement to pay such damages. Given the disproportion between the claimed loss and the accessory's price, the circumstances did not permit a reasonable inference that Lacy tacitly consented to extraordinary liability.

Issue #2

Whether Lamkins proved damages under the proper measure for an alleged inability to plant a crop.

Holding

No. For prevention of planting a crop, the proper measure is the rental value of the land, and Lamkins offered no evidence of that value.

Reasoning

Lamkins's cross-complaint asserted that he was prevented from planting and growing soybeans on twenty-five acres. Arkansas law measures damages for being prevented from planting a crop by the rental value of the affected land, rather than by an asserted nightly loss or anticipated crop profits.

The record contained no proof of the rental value of the twenty-five acres. Thus, independently of the failure to establish the seller's assumption of consequential-damage liability, Lamkins failed to supply evidence from which a jury could calculate recoverable damages.