9 Ex. 341, 156 Eng. Rep. 145 (1854)
The plaintiffs carried on the business of millers and mealmen in copartnership at the City Steam-Mills in Gloucester and operated a steam-engine there to clean corn, grind it into meal, and dress it into flour, sharps, and bran.1 A crank shaft of the steam-engine broke, stopping the mill.2 The plaintiffs ordered a new crank shaft from W. Joyce & Co. at Greenwich, who required the broken shaft to be sent as a pattern so the replacement would fit the uninjured parts of the engine.3
On 13 May the plaintiffs' servant delivered the broken shaft to the defendants, who traded as Pickford & Co. and acted as common carriers, at their Gloucester office.4 The servant told the clerk the mill was stopped and the shaft must be sent immediately.5 The clerk stated that if the shaft were sent by twelve o'clock that day it would be delivered at Greenwich the following day.6 The defendants took the shaft before noon and the plaintiffs paid £2 4s. for its carriage the whole distance.7
The defendants delayed delivery of the shaft to Greenwich through neglect.8 As a result, the plaintiffs did not receive the new shaft until several days later than they otherwise would have.9 Their mill remained idle for five days beyond the time they otherwise would have been prevented from working.10 During that period the plaintiffs were unable to supply many customers with flour, sharps, and bran, were obliged to buy flour for some customers, lost the opportunity to sell their products, and had to pay wages to workmen they could not employ.11
The defendants paid £25 into court in satisfaction of the claim under the second count.12 At trial before Crompton, J., at the Gloucester Assizes the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs with £25 damages in excess of the amount paid into court.13 A rule nisi for a new trial was obtained on the ground of misdirection.14
Whether the plaintiffs' claimed loss of profits from the five-day mill stoppage should be taken into account by the jury when estimating damages for the defendants' delay in delivering the broken shaft?15
Where two parties have made a contract which one of them has broken, the damages which the other party ought to receive in respect of such breach should be such as may fairly and reasonably be considered either (1) arising naturally, that is, according to the usual course of things, from such breach of contract itself, or (2) such as 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 of it.16
If the special circumstances under which the contract was actually made were communicated by the plaintiffs to the defendants and thus known to both parties, the damages resulting from the breach which they would reasonably contemplate would be the amount of injury which would ordinarily follow from a breach under those special circumstances. But if those special circumstances were wholly unknown to the party breaking the contract, he can only be supposed to have contemplated the injury which would arise generally in the great multitude of cases not affected by special circumstances.17
No.18 On the facts before the jury the Judge ought to have told them that they ought not to take the loss of profits into consideration in estimating damages.19 This applies unless it was established that the special circumstances causing those losses had been communicated to and known by the defendants.20 In the absence of such notice, damages must be limited to those which arise in the ordinary course of events from the breach of a carrier's duty.21
No.