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Show REMEDIES FOR INFRINGEMENT " 219 and measurement of damages. These decisions exemplify some of the various methods sanctioned by the courts for ascertaining the damages that may be awarded.145 (1) As a general proposition, damages which are the natural and proximate consequences of a wrongful act, and result from it, may be recovered by the injured party.146 (2) A 1914 Nebraska case concerning appropriative rights involved an action for damages alleged to have accrued to plaintiffs by depriving their cattle of water in a summer month. Defendant so obstructed the flow of a stream as to cut off the water supply which rightfully should have gone to his neighbor. The evidence showed that during this period of interference with the water needed by the plaintiffs' cattle, their weight and corresponding value fell off to the extent of about $800. Defendant made a counterclaim of $250 for damages to his crop of hay, alfalfa, and corn by plaintiffs' cattle. A jury verdict was rendered for plaintiffs for the sum of $397.50. The supreme court held that the evidence sustained the verdict and that the amount of the verdict was not excessive.147 (3) In a Colorado case, the plaintiff had alleged in his first cause of action that the defendant irrigation district so constructed its irrigation ditch as to destroy the laterals by which the plaintiffs land was supplied with irrigation water so that plaintiff received insufficient water and his crops were thereby destroyed during 1910 and 1911. The Colorado Supreme Court said in regard to the instruction by the trial court:148 The court instructed the jury that if they found from the evidence that any damage was occasioned to the growing crops for which defendant was liable under the first cause of action, the measure of such damage would be the reasonable value of the crops at the time the damage occurred, and in the condition they then were. Counsel for defendant insist this instruction was erroneous, because the measure of damages was the rental value of the land. It appears that plaintiff was in possession of the land, and planted crops thereon, which did not fully mature for lack of water. Had he been deprived of the entire use of the land, the rental value 145 In addition to other damages such as those discussed below, punitive damages may be awarded in a proper case. See, e.g., Falkenberg v. Neff, 72 Utah 258, 269 Pac. 1008, 1012-1013 (1928); Lowe v. Yolo County Consol. Water Co., 157 Cal. 503, 108 Pac. 297, 300-301 (1910), referring to § 3294 of the California Civil Code; Village of Peck v. Denison, 92 Idaho 747, 450 Pac. (2d) 310, 314-315 (1969); Augustine v. Hinnen, 201 Kans. 710, 443 Pac. (2d) 354, 356-357 (1968); Atkinson v.Herington Cattle Co., 200 Kans. 298, 436 Pac. (2d) 816, 825-826 (1968), which also discusses, at 824-825, the question of mitigation of damages. 1A6North Point Consol. Irr. Co. v. Utah & S. L. Canal Co., 23 Utah 199, 63 Pac. 812, 814 (1901). lA1Norman v. Kusel, 97 Nebr. 400, 401, 404-405, 150 N.W. 201 (1914). 148North Sterling Irr. Dist. v. Dickman, 59 Colo. 169, 149 Pac. 97, 98 (1915). |