COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND FILED November 10, 2009 Clerk of Court of Appeals |
|
NOTICE |
|
|
This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10 and Rule 809.62. |
|
Appeal No. |
|
|||
STATE OF |
IN COURT OF APPEALS |
|||
|
DISTRICT I |
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
Terra Nova, Inc., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Interpersonal Institute, Inc., Defendant-Respondent. |
||||
|
|
|||
APPEAL
from a judgment of the circuit court for
¶1 FINE, J. Terra Nova, Inc., appeals a small-claims judgment entered after a trial de novo in circuit court awarding Interpersonal Institute, Inc., $4,995 on its counterclaim. The only issue on appeal is whether there was evidence to support the circuit court’s award of damages to Interpersonal Institute.[1] We affirm.
¶2 Interpersonal Institute hired Terra Nova to give it a system to record Interpersonal Institute’s Interpersonal Growth Groups, which one of the participants testified were “experiential learning” sessions. The circuit court agreed with the assessment of Interpersonal Institute’s executive director that she was unable to use the Terra Nova system it purchased. Terra Nova argues on appeal, however, that there is no evidence from which the circuit court could have concluded that Interpersonal Institute spent anything or had any ascertainable consequential damages as a result, and points to the following direct-examination testimony on the counterclaim by a person whom Interpersonal Institute asked to look into the problems caused by Terra Nova:
Q If I had paid you for all of the work you’ve done for me, what might that have cost me?
A Probably -- Well, I put in about 50 to 60 hours on this and my -- I don’t do independent consulting anymore, but the usual bill rate for that is about $100 an hour; so between five and $6,000.
Although Terra Nova is correct
that what could have been charged or
paid is not evidence of recoverable damages, see Dehnart v.
¶3 The contract price for the system Terra Nova undertook to
provide was $45,000.07. The circuit
court could not award more than $5,000 on Interpersonal Institute’s
counterclaim. See Wis. Stat. §
799.01(1)(d). Based on its finding that
Interpersonal Institute paid for a system that did not work, its award of
$4,995 was reasonable. See
By the Court.—Judgment affirmed.
This opinion will not be published. See Wis. Stat. Rule 809.23(1)(b)4
[1] The circuit court dismissed Terra Nova’s small-claims complaint against Interpersonal Institute, but Terra Nova does not appeal from that ruling.