Newsome v. W. Union Tel. Co. - 153 N.C. 153, 69 S.E. 10 (1910)

Rule:

Damages are not to be based upon mere conjectural probability of future loss or gain. 

Facts:

The customer filed a negligence action against the telegraph company was the result of an erroneous transmission of a telegram. The alleged negligence consists in transmitting a telegram to one Royal, Benson, N.C. ordering four gallons corn whiskey to be sent by express to Mintz Siding in Sampson County, N. C. The signature was transcribed on the delivered telegram as T. J. Sessons instead of T. J. Newsome. The plaintiff alleges that he ordered the whiskey by agreement with his raft hands who were preparing to construct rafts and take his timber and rosin to Wilmington during a freshet in February, 1902, and that they refused to go into the water without it; in consequence of which he lost the benefit of the freshet and was greatly endamaged.

Issue:

May the telegraph company be liable to damages which were purely speculative and remote?

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

The court found the fact that the customer informed the telegraph company's operator that he needed the whiskey in order to get his rafting done would not allow the court to hold the telegraph company to damages which were purely speculative and remote. The court ruled that the telegraph company, being a public agency, was compelled to accept the telegram and to agree with the customer, at the price fixed. The fact that the whiskey was not sent could have caused the hands not to go into the water, but it was a far cry between constructing a raft and marketing the product. The court concluded that the whiskey could have arrived and the raft could have remained unconstructed. Thus, the court ruled that it required quite a stretch of the imagination to conceive that had the whiskey arrived, that the raft would have been properly constructed and loaded.