VIANINI COMPANY, by its Manager, MARCO POSSENTI, Appellant v. SAMUEL B. COLE, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, MONTSERRADO COUNTY. Argued April 20, 1964. Decided May 22, 1964. 1. Special damages must be pleaded with particularity and affirmatively proved. 2. The Supreme Court will disallow an award of special damages where such damages were not established on trial in the lower court. On appeal from a judgment on a verdict of a jury awarding damages in an action arising from injuries to personal property allegedly sustained in an automobile accident, the judgment was modified by deletion of special damages and affirmed as modified. C. L. Simpson and C. O. Tunning for appellant. Samuel B. Cole, appellee, pro se. MR. JUSTICE PIERRE delivered the opinion of the Court. Claiming special damages in the sum of $1,400 from the Vianini Company, the present appellee, Samuel B. Cole, filed suit in the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, Montserrado County. He claimed that as a result of the recklessness of one of the company’s drivers, a company vehicle collided with his car, ruining important parts thereof. A garage in Monrovia made a survey of the damage done to the car and submitted an estimate of what it would cost to repair and restore the car to use. Here are the garage figures : 95 96 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS Fender (I) Signal lights (2) Headlamp (1) Mouldings (5) Bumper (I) Control arms (z) “Wheel cap (1) Straightening and painting Labor Total $40. 24. 25. 41. 30. 6. 225. 5o. $455. Added to this amount were the sums of $795, representing charges at $15 a day for 53 days the car is alleged to have been out of use, and $15o as counsel fees. These together make up the sum sued for–$.1,400. The defendant company appeared and filed answer denying the allegations of the complaint and specifically questioning the plaintiff’s right to demand $15 a day for 53 days, the time he claimed to have been without transportation as a result of the damage to his car. They denied that they had ever promised to pay him this sum as he had alleged; and they contended that since his car was not a common carrier he was not entitled to collect it for losses due to its non-use. Pleadings progressed as far as the rejoinder and rested. Trial of the case commenced before Judge Findley in the May term, 1962. Witnesses on both sides testified, and a jury returned a verdict awarding the plaintiff the amount he had sued for as damages. Judgment was rendered on the verdict of the jury, and from this judgment an appeal has been taken to the Supreme Court. As stated earlier, special damages were prayed for in the court below; therefore, each of the three sums of money making up the amount claimed as damages should have been proved at the trial. As Mr. Justice Shannon, LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 97 speaking for the Court, said in Firestone Plantations Company v. Greaves, 9 L.L.R. 25o, 268 (1947) “We are not willing to agree that appellee clearly and cogently proved the amount of damages awarded under said count two of his complaint because there is a positive provision in our statutes that where special damages are relied upon they must be specifically pleaded in the complaint and proved at the trial. T. Rev. Stat. � 237; Stat. of Liberia (Old Blue Book) tit. I, � 37, at 27, 2 Hub. 1521. Having pleaded that he was injured by the appellant through deprivation of the use of his car and having asked for damages to be awarded in the sum of ten dollars per diem, the verdict of the jury should have responded to this count by showing how much appellee was awarded per diem and for what period. It is not sufficient to leave the court with speculative calculations and conjectures.” It is our opinion that specific sums of money asked for as special damages must be based upon definite and certain knowledge as to their correctness; and in such eventuality, this must be testified to and proved at the trial in order to justify a judgment awarding such sums. It is significant that nowhere in the records of the trial of this case was any effort shown to have been made to prove plaintiff’s loss of $15 a day for 53 days; yet the jury awarded this sum without having heard any testimony beside the plaintiff’s on this very important point of fact alleged in the complaint. When this point was argued before us we inquired of appellee, who was plaintiff in court below, the means whereby he had arrived at the definite sum he had demanded as damages for 53 days’ inconvenience. He answered that, on the bill submitted by the garage, it is shown that the car was there for 53 days; but when asked how he arrived at fixing his per diem transportation expense at $15, he could not convincingly explain. Ac- 98 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS cording to the records certified to this Court, no attempt was ever made to prove this at the trial. The Supreme Court is without authority to confirm awards in special damages, unless every detailed portion of the amounts awarded have been specifically and satisfactorily proved at the trial. Therefore we find ourselves unable to confirm the amount of $795 awarded by the jury as part of the damages prayed for. Appellant has contended that counsel fee should not have been assessed as damages in this case and with this contention we are in agreement. This Court has recently held that : “Counsel fees and costs of litigation are not included in computation of damages for injury to personal property.” Kashouh v. Manly-Cole, [1964] LRSC 11; 15 L.L.R. 554 (1964), Syllabus 5. We must therefore refuse to confirm the award of $15o representing counsel fee for bringing this action, and which the jury erroneously awarded in their verdict. In considering the amount charged for repairs to the damaged car, we have taken into account the ruling of the traffic court fixing responsibility for the collision; and since that ruling, based upon the evidence which was taken at the hearing, adjudged the company’s driver guilty of reckless driving which resulted in the collision which damaged the plaintiff’s car, there would seem to be ground for claiming some amount to restore the car to use. We have also taken into account the bill submitted by the garage which made the repairs; and because we feel that the company is legally responsible for its driver’s acts which resulted in injury to the plaintiff, we do not hesitate to confirm the amount of $455 charged by the garage, which amount was shown on a bill of particulars made profert with the complaint, was testified to at the trial, and was corroborated by a representative from the garage. LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 99 It is therefore our opinion that the judgment should be affirmed as to the amount of $455� The other two amounts, not having been legally or factually established, are disallowed. Costs against the appellants. Affirmed as modified.