DAMAGES. 199 



False Representation made by a third person of the profits 

 of a business, such third person not having been communi- 

 cated with before the action was brouglit, nor having re- 

 presented himself as Agent for the defendants in that 

 action, are not the legal and natural consequences of the 

 Breach of Contract or of the Injury which has been in- 

 flicted (/). But it is otherwise, when on the third person 

 being communicated with, before action was brought, he 

 said that the plaintiffs might safely go on with their 

 action, and also professed to have authority as Agent for 

 the Representations which he made {g). 



This rule illustrates the maxim " In jure non remota 

 causa sed proxima spectatur" — it is the proximate only and 

 not the remote consequences of an act that are to be re- 

 garded. But as to the degree of remoteness it is said that 

 no distinct line can be drawn. In each case the Court 

 must say, as a matter of law, whether it is on the one side 

 or the other {//). In Ilobbs v. Lo)idon and South Western 

 Raihcay Co. (/), the plaintiffs took tickets to travel by a 

 midnight train from W. to H. The train did not go to 

 H., and the plaintiffs were taken to E., which was a station 

 further from the plaintiffs' house than H. was. The 

 plaintiffs walked home in the wet from E., there being no 

 conveyance to be had. It was held that damages might 

 be given for the personal inconvenience and discomfort of 

 having so to walk, but not for illness brought on by the 

 dampness of the night. But where an innkeeper contracted 

 to provide stabling for twelve horses for the plaintiff during 

 a particular fair, and failed to do so, it was held that the 

 plaintiff could recover damages for injmy caused to the 

 Horses by exposui-e to the weather while he was engaged in 

 finding other stables for them (/.•). 



The Judge should direct the Jury as to any established Judge to 

 rules of measuring the Damages applicable to the parti- ^'^f^^ J|"y 

 cuiar case, and tiie omission to do so is a ground tor a new Damages 

 trial (/). 



In accordance with the ride that Damages should be Damages 

 estimated by the legal and natural consequences of the arising from 



"^ ° special cir- 



(/) Ekhanhon v. Diaui, 30 L. J., 

 C. P. 44. 



(ff) Randell v. Triinoi, 2o L. J., 

 C. P. 307. 



(A) Hohhs V. London and South 

 Western Itailuay Co., L. E,., 10 Q. 

 B. 117; 44 L. J., Q. B. .52; 32 L. 

 T., N. S. 3.')2 : 23 W. E. 520 ; per 



