HILLS ET AL. VERSUS ROSS
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The Supreme Court addressed a damages dispute involving Hills, May, and Woodbridge, who acted as agents in the sale of a captured cargo for Walter Ross. The Court reversed the lower court's decree and modified it to hold the defendants accountable only for the net proceeds of the sales (after deducting duties they paid), rather than the full value of the goods, since they were agents rather than original trespassers. The defendants were ordered to pay Ross the net amount of sales plus interest, along with court costs.
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Bv the Court
: J.t appears, that the damages have been affeffed in the courts below, in relation to the value of the goods that were captured : but the Plaintiffs in error were not trefpaffers ab initio ; and, a£ting only as agents, they ihould be made anfwerable for no more than adlually came into their hands. The accounts of fales are regularly colledted and annexed to the record. We are, therefore, at no lofs for a criterion : And we think that the decree ihould be fo modified, as to charge them with the amount of fales, after deducing the duties on the goods, if the duties were paid by them.
The Decree was in the following words:—Ordered, That the decree of the Circuit Court for Georgia diftriét, pronounced on the 5th of May, 1795, be reverfed, fo far as the fame refpedls the faid Hills, May-and JVoodbridge ; and it is further ordered, that the faid Hills, May and Woodbridge, pay to the faid Walter Rofs, thirty-two thoufand and ninety dollars and fifty-eight cents,-the net amount of the fales of the cargo of the laid fliip, and five thoufand fix hundred and five dollars and twelve cents, intereft thereon, from the 6th day of June 1794, to the twelfth day of Augujl 1796, making together the fum of thirtv-feven thoufand fix hundred and ninety-five dollars and feventy cents, and that the faid Hills, May and Woodbridge, do .pay the cofts of fuit—and a fpecial mandate, &c.