Decatur County Ag-Services, Inc. v. Young

426 N.E.2d 644 (Ind. 1981)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P contracted with D in the summer of 1976 for D to aerially apply an insecticide to his eighteen-acre soybean field which was being attacked by grasshoppers. After the spraying, P detected damage to his crop. As a result of the negligent spraying, the crop's growth was retarded, and the field yielded approximately thirty-one bushels per acre. Prior to the damage, this particular soybean field was of above average quality, in fact of exceptional quality, and located on good farmland. The average yield that year for soybean fields of above average quality in this locality was forty to fifty bushels of beans per acre with many outstanding fields exceeding fifty bushels per acre. The trial judge found that P would have realized a yield of fifty bushels of soybeans per acre if his crop had not been damaged. Thus, the difference between the potential yield and the actual yield for the eighteen acres was three hundred and forty-two bushels of beans. The court further found that P was entitled to $3,420 in damages, which was equal to a price of ten dollars per bushel for the lost portion of the crop. This was based on P’s storing and selling the crop the next year and the prices he got when he speculated on the market. D appealed; the damages were speculative.