tachment, under which the seizure was made to be vacated, and to the sheriff $66, before he would surrender to her the goods and premises. Her verdict was for only $416, from which deduct the $91 paid to the lawyer and the sheriff, not disputed, and it would seem that the jury had awarded her only about one-third of the amount which, by proof, she' claimed as damages to her stock of goods, and yet the brief of defendants’ counsel is devoted almost entirely to argument that this verdict is against the evidence and the weight of evidence. And the only point of law discussed by the counsel is raised by his exception to so much of the judge’s charge as says : “ The plaintiff has also the right to recover the profits that she would have made had she been permitted to continue in business in this store. Her witnesses claim that her profits would have been $90, and, if you believe that testimony, the plaintiff is entitled to verdict for the profits,” and by his exception to the proof of the facts upon which this charge is based. There was no dispute except as to the measure and value of plaintiff’s damages, and the plaintiff’s uncontradicted proof, as regards loss of profits, was that the sheriff retained unlawful possession of the stock of goods and the store, for about three weeks, during which time he absolutely excluded her from the premises, thus preventing her from conducting her business; that the average daily sales by her in this store, at the time of the seizure, was about $50, upon which her average profit was about twenty per cent, or $5 per day, and, hence, that her profits would have been about $90 for the time during which her business was entirely broken up by the tortious acts of the sheriff. The complaint alleged that by reason of such acts she lost the sale of her goods and the profits which she would have otherwise made. The loss of profits consequent upon a tort are allowed, provided they are such as might naturally be expected to follow from the wrongful act and are certain both in their nature and in respect to the cause from which they proceed.
Griffin v. Colver, 16 N. Y. 489 ;
Capel v.
Lyons, 46 St. Rep. 298 . A person who deliberately walks into a retail store, forcibly ejects the proprietor without any right and locks and tightly closes the store, must naturally expect that such proprietor will lose the sale of his goods and the consequent loss of his usual profits during this unlawful interruption of his business, and it is certain that the cause from which this loss proceeds is the act of the tortfeasor, and the nature of the loss of profits is made sufficiently certain by proof of the average daily sales made at the time of the unlawful interruption of the business and the then average profit on such sales.
Schile v.
Brochhahus, 80 N. Y. 614 . In the
Schile case the action was based upon defendants’ tort or trespass in so tearing down a partition wall as to leave the plaintiff’s adjoining house, in which he conducted a picture, lithograph and furniture business, open and exposed to the1 weather, and thus causing a partial interruption of his business, and the great chief justice, there writing, says: “When the evidence of the amount of business and profits during the corresponding months of the previous year were offered, the objection was made that it was incompetent for the purpose of proving loss of profits. This objection