188 



PI.EADING, EVIDENCE AND DAMAGES. 



Judge to 

 direct jury as 

 to rules ol 

 damages. 



Damages 

 arising from 

 special cir- 

 cumstances. 



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 (m). In Hobbs v. London and South Western 

 Raihomj 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 injury caused to the 

 horses by exposure to the weather while he was engaged in 

 finding other stables for them (o). 



The Judge should direct the jury as to any established 

 rules of measuring the damages applicable to the parti- 

 cular case, and the omission to do so is a ground for a new 

 trial {p). 



In accordance with the rule that damages should be 

 estimated by the legal and natural consequences of the 

 breach of contract, or such as may be reasonably supposed 

 to have been in the contemplation of the parties at the time 

 they made the contract, as the probable result of the breach 

 of it, it was laid down in Sadley v. JBaxendale [q), that 

 where a contract is made under special circumstances, which 

 are communicated by one of the contracting parties to the 

 other, the damages resulting from a breach of the contract, 

 which the parties would reasonably be supposed to have 

 contemplated, are the amount of injury, which would 

 ordinarily follow from such a breach of contract under the 

 special circumstances. But if the special circumstances are 

 unknown to the party breaking the contract, he, at the 

 most, can only be held to have contemplated the amount of 



(m) Sohhs v. Zondon and South 

 Western Sail. Co., L. E., 10 Q. B. 

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

 N. S. 352; 23 W. R. 520— per 

 Blackbmn, j. 



('«) Ubi supra. 



(o) McMahon v. Field, 7 Q. B. D. 

 .-)91 ; 50 L. J., Ex, 652— C. A. 



{■p) Hadley v. JBaxendale, 23 L. J., 



Ex. 179 ; Srneed v. Foord, 28 L. J., 

 Q. B. 178. 



(?) Hadley y. BaxeHdale,2i L. J., 

 Ex. 179 ; SmeedM. Foord, 28 L. J., 

 Q. B. 178 ; Some v. Midland Mail. 

 Co., L. E., 8 C. P. 131; 42 L. J., 

 C. P. 64 ; Hammond v. Bmsey, 20 

 Q. B. D. 79; 57 L. J., Q. B. 58. 



