RULES OF LAW (1)
Replevin will not lie for property lawfully in the possession of another until a proper demand has been made for its delivery.
Butler v. Wolf Sussman
The court applied the ancient common law principle: (Whoever owns the soil, it is theirs all the way to Heaven and all the way to Hell). “The surface of the ground is a guide, but not the full measure, for within reasonable limitations land includes not only the surface but also the space above and the part beneath.” Ejectment is maintainable when property is tangible, an entry can be made, and possession can be delivered by the sheriff removing the obstructing structure.
Butler v. Frontier Telephone Co.
A seller sued to recover barber equipment after a contract breach; the buyer replevied the property but later claimed it disappeared after the verdict.
Charlotte Barber Suply co. v Branham
Action by "Next Friend" suing on behalf of an infant for injuries sustained when plaintiff was struck by defendant’s train. On a judgment ruling in favor of plaintiff in the Southern District Court of West Virginia, defendant appeals. Case moved up to United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit where appeal was reversed and remanded for a new trial.
Virginian Railway v. Armentrout
unlawful taking and unlawful retention (Plaintiff can get item back in beginning through writ)
Replevin
The damages recoverable for a breach of contract are those that may fairly and reasonably be considered as arising naturally, in the usual course of things, from the breach, or those that may reasonably be supposed to have been in the contemplation of both parties at the time they made the contract as the probable result of the breach.
Hadley v. Baxendale
“Their Lordships conclude this part of the case with some general observations. They have been concerned primarily to displace the proposition that unforeseeability is irrelevant if damage is "direct." In doing so they have inevitably insisted that the essential factor in determining liability is whether the damage is of such a kind as the reasonable man should have foreseen."
Overseas Tankship Cases
In July 1940, (the buyer) contracted to supply leggings to the U.S. War Department under an agreement that included per diem penalties for late deliveries
(the seller) agreed to provide the necessary webbing for the leggings, and a jury found that he knew about the government penalty at the time of the contract
. When seller failed to deliver the webbing on schedule, buyer was unable to meet the government's deadlines and incurred $22,740.99 in liquidated damages, which they sought to recover from seller via a counterclaim
Krauss v. Greenbarg
The plaintiff, a railway employee, was standing on the rear of a moving handcar traveling down a wet, slippery track at 10 to 20 miles per hour. A second handcar was following negligently, only 60 feet behind instead of the required 540 feet, which was too close for it to safely stop. When the plaintiff looked back at the fast-approaching rear car, he became dizzy, lost his balance, and fell onto the tracks. Because the rear car was following so closely and at such a high speed, it was impossible for the crew to stop in time, and the car ran over the plaintiff, resulting in severe injuries
Christianson v. Chicago
The act of wrongfully depriving someone of the freehold possession of property
Disseisin
The law gives remedy to a man who suffers an injury by pure accident; many injuries which cause suffering and we have no remedy. When others, by their negligence, injure a person, either in his estate or in his person, the law gives remedy.
3 Part Negligence Test
Hill v Winsor
“ The law is that if the act is one which the party ought, in the exercise of ordinary care, to have anticipated was liable to result in injury to others, then he is liable for any injury proximately resulting from it, although he could not have anticipated the particular injury which it did happen. Consequences which follow in unbroken sequence without an intervening efficient cause, from the original negligent act, are natural and proximate;and for such consequences the original wrongdoer is responsible, even though he could not have foreseen the results”
Christianson v. Chicago St. Paul Minn. & Omaha Railway
In itself nothing can be more reasonable than that the man who by wrong detains my property, should be compelled to restore it to me in specie;
General rule: the law being defective in this particular, such defect is properly supplied in equity.
Though at law, only the intrinsic value is to be recovered yet it would be very hard that one who comes by such a piece of antiquity by wrong, or maybe as a trespasser, should have it in his power to keep the thing, paying only the intrinsic value of it.
Duke of Somerset v. Cookson
The plaintiff was standing on a platform of the defendant’s railroad waiting to board a train. A train was approaching, and two men rushed to get on. The first man had no issue, and the second was running out of time to enter the train so others helped him get on. The man was carrying a package containing fireworks and dropped it in this process. When the package fell the fireworks exploded. The explosion caused scales on the other end of the platform to be shaken loose, and struck the plaintiff causing injury for which she now sued
Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad
Someone who appears in a lawsuit to act for the benefit of an incompetent or minor plaintiff, but who is not a party to the lawsuit and is not appointed as a guardian
Next Friend
But every person is bound to make a reasonable use of his property so as to occasion no unnecessary damage or annoyance to his neighbor. If he makes an unreasonable, unwarrantable or unlawful use of it, so as to produce material annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort or hurt to his neighbor, he will be guilty of a nuisance to his neighbor. Law will hold him responsible for the consequences.
Campbell v. Seamen
In order that a person who does a particular act which results in injury to another person shall be liable therefore the act must be of such character, and done in such a situation, that the person doing it should reasonably have anticipated that some injury to another will probably result therefrom
Mauney v. Gulf Refining Company
The owners of several ships sued for property damage after their vessels were caught in a fire in Sydney Harbour. The fire resulted from a large quantity of furnace oil that was carelessly discharged by the defendant’s employees from the ship Wagon Mound. While the trial judge found that reasonable officers would have regarded furnace oil as "very difficult to ignite upon water" and considered the chance of it catching fire as "remote," it was nonetheless recognized as a "possibility" that could occur in exceptional circumstances. Furthermore, the court established that there was "no justification whatever" for the spill, as it was a legal "offence" and a financial loss to the ship, and a vigilant engineer could have easily prevented the discharge at an early stage without any difficulty, disadvantage, or expense. These findings led the court to conclude that the fire was a "real risk" that a reasonable person in the position of the chief engineer should have foreseen and prevented
Overseas Tankship (U.K) Ltd. v. Miller Steamship Co. (The Wagon Mound No. 2)
The defendant, who was a total stranger to the plaintiff, obtained a license to put rocks on the unoccupied lots belonging to the plaintiff for a short amount of time. This was made possible by the defendant's reassurance that he would remove the rocks by spring. Nothing was paid and no contract was made, just the agreement that the terms of the license would expire in the spring. In the winter, the plaintiff discovered huge amounts of rock covering six of the lots. This was a clear abuse of the license, and excessive to the point that if the defendant had asked the plaintiff to place this number of rocks on the lots, he would have not granted permission. In the spring, the plaintiff complained to the defendant after realizing his abuse of the license. The defendant then agreed to remove these rocks but never did so. Even after repeated demands he still did not comply.
Wheelock v. Noonan
An amount contractually stipulated as a reasonable estimation of actual damages to be recovered by one party if the other party breaches.
Liquidated Damages
t does not seem harsh to require a developer, who has taken advantage of the lesser land values in a rural area as well as the availability of large tracts of land on which to build and develop a new town or city in the area, to indemnify those who are forced to leave as a result.”
“In some circumstances the defendant is going to be required to share the cost of the plaintiff being enjoined”
Spur Industries, Inc. v. Del E. Webb Development Co
that where a nuisance has been found and where there has been any substantial damage shown by the party complaining an injunction will be granted.
Boomer v. Atlantic Cement Co
A group of workers and their employer entered into a written agreement where the employer promised to recognize assignments of wages for the payment of monthly dues. Numerous employees signed written requests to have these funds deducted from their paychecks and sent to their representative organization, a process the employer initially followed. However, the employer eventually notified the organization that it would stop recognizing these requests for approximately 120 individuals and refused to forward the funds. The organization, having met all its contractual obligations, argued that this breach would cause irreparable damage because they had specifically bargained for the security of regular, automatic payments
Sanford v. Boston Edison
the steamship chartered was discharging cargo at Casablanca, Morocco, where leaked petrol tins had caused flammable vapour to accumulate in the ship's hold. During this process, Arab stevedores employed by the charterers negligently allowed a heavy plank to fall into the hold while heaving a cargo sling. The falling board struck a substance in the hold and created a spark that ignited the petrol vapour, resulting in a fire that totally destroyed the vessel. Although the arbitrators found that the creation of a spark was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of dropping the plank, they concluded that the act was negligent because some physical damage to the ship could have been anticipated. As a result of the ship's destruction, the owners claimed damages totaling £196,165
In Re Polemis
French for to wait or stay – a pleading stating that although the facts alleged in a complaint may be true, they are insufficient for the plaintiff to state a claim for relief and for the defendant to frame an answer. In some jurisdictions, such a pleading is termed a motion to dismiss
Demurrer