Muldoon v. Lynch
Supreme Court of California
6 P. 417 (Cal. 1885)
The plaintiffs contracted to build and install a marble monument imported from Italy at a defendant's husband's gravesite for $18,788, with the contract specifying completion within 12 months and a clause imposing $10 per day in damages for delay beyond that period. Although the plaintiffs bought the monument in Italy well before the deadline, shipping delays beyond their control, caused by the monument's size and weight, pushed the installation back roughly two years, and applying the $10-per-day clause would have resulted in $7,820 in damages; the defendant refused to pay the full contract price based on that clause and the delay, and the trial court found the clause was an invalid penalty rather than valid liquidated damages, ruling for the plaintiffs.
Whether a contractual clause imposing damages of a set amount per day of delay is valid where the non-breaching party suffered no actual damage beyond the delay in performance itself.