Giving Thanks for This Legal Blast from the Past

As you deal with that turkey that just won’t come to temperature, the dressing that just won’t firm up, or the sweet potatoes you just don’t feel like peeling and cutting up, remember that things could be worse. You could be H.S. Nolen, a Texas turkey farmer whose birds were run over by a negligently conducted train in the late 1930s. Though a lower court granted him damages based on what he would have made on the turkeys at Thanksgiving, a Texas appellate court reversed, stating that because the turkeys were killed in August, he was entitled only to the value of the turkeys at that point in time:

Did the court err in submitting to the jury the Thanksgiving market value of the turkeys instead of the market value at the place and time in which they were killed? We think so. The rule for measuring damages for the loss of personal  property is: (1) Its reasonable market value at the time and place where the property was destroyed; (2) if there be no market value of such property at such time and place, then the actual value of the property, or what it was worth to the owner. The jury found, on disputed evidence, that there was no market value of the turkeys in the local market at Greenville on August 13th, though there was direct evidence showing that there was such market value and that the turkeys, lost to appellee, based on such market value, would be about $6. There was no evidence showing the actual value of the turkeys to appellee at such time and place, or showing their value to their owner.

Texas N. O. R. Co. v. Nolen, 107 S.W.2d 1116, 1117-18 (Tex. App. 1937). The court therefore remanded for the question of damages to be re-examined. Ironically, Farmer Nolen likely couldn’t help but think that this decision was for the birds. Hopefully it didn’t gobble up all of his expected turkey profits. But I’ll stop here before you find me guilty of stuffing too many puns into this post.

Happy Thanksgiving!