Assure Global, LLC v. Anderson

Background

Assure Global, LLC, doing business as WeShield, alleged that Aaron Anderson and Axxeum, LLC breached a contract to sell it 500,000 nitrile gloves of a particular thickness and quality. Assure paid Axxeum $65,000. The shipment was missing 160,000 gloves, and Assure asserted that the gloves it received were not the agreed six-millimeter thickness. Assure resold $7,498.37 worth of the gloves it received.

The defendants failed to answer, challenge, or otherwise oppose the case. Judge Lewis J. Liman previously granted Assure’s motion for default judgment as to liability but denied it as to damages. He referred the damages issue to Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave for a settlement conference and an inquest, meaning a court examination of the amount of loss. The report and recommendation states that the defendants did not participate in the settlement conference or respond to Assure’s damages submissions.

Damages analysis

Assure requested $87,871.63 in contract damages: $57,501.63 for the gloves it claimed were missing or defective, $28,800 for purchasing replacement gloves, $720 for overtime labor, and $850 for additional shipping. The court recommended awarding none of these amounts.

For the missing and defective gloves, the court found that Assure had not shown the market value of either the five-millimeter gloves it received or the six-millimeter gloves it had ordered. Assure’s statements that the nonconforming gloves were worthless and that its customers had no demand for them were not supported by sufficient documentary evidence. The court therefore could not calculate damages with reasonable certainty.

For the replacement gloves, the court agreed that the proper measure could theoretically be the difference between the replacement cost and the contract price. Judge Liman had previously identified a possible $8,000 difference, rather than the full $28,800 replacement cost. But Assure did not provide invoices, receipts, bills of lading, or similar documents showing what it paid the replacement vendors. The court therefore recommended denying damages under this theory as well.

The court also found insufficient evidence for the $720 overtime request because Assure supplied no payroll records, receipts, or comparable information showing the employees, dates, hours, or pay rates involved. It likewise found that the document offered to support the $850 shipping request appeared to concern the original shipment, not additional shipping caused by the breach, and did not establish that Assure incurred the claimed additional cost.

Interest, attorney fees, and costs

Because the court recommended awarding no damages, it also recommended awarding no interest. Assure removed its request for attorney fees from its supplemental submission, and the court treated that request as waived. The court also noted that Assure had not identified a statute or contract provision allowing attorney fees for the breach-of-contract claim.

The court recommended awarding $1,108.10 in costs: the $402 filing fee and $706.10 in documented service-of-process costs. It concluded that Assure was a prevailing party for purposes of recovering those costs because Judge Liman had found the defendants liable.

Recommendation and procedure

Judge Cave recommended that Assure receive no damages but recover $1,108.10 in costs. The parties were notified that they had 14 days after service to file objections with the district court. The report and recommendation therefore proposed the disposition; it was directed to Judge Liman for further action.