I have a newspapers.com subscription (for family history purposes), but today, I came across some tomato crime news that told of a man who reported that 35 of his garden's tomato plants had been pulled up (along with 20 cauliflower plants), with 20 more plants having been stomped on. His plants were valued at $205. This was 1987.

Anyway, that's pretty sad news, actually, but it begs the question: How do they determine how much a tomato plant is valued at, and how much would they be valued at today, with inflation (and maybe changes in other things)?

I had this thought today. Fedex came down my extra long driveway to deliver a tiny package and the normal escape loop was blocked by a contractor clearing the electrical lines from interfering trees. I thought what if the FedEx driver was totally incompetent backing up (way more common than you think). Turns out he excelled at backing up and according to him, a very young him, excelled at fathering children, that’s was his reason for working as a Fedex driver.

But, I could have seen my tomato plants mowed down by a errant driver. My daughter’s most recent boyfriend completely demolished my crepe myrtle backing up in exactly the same spot. One fear I have, crazy drivers mowing down tomato plants.

$563.23

https://www.measuringworth.com/dollarva ... &from=1987

Value in a legal sense would be set at replacement cost for the plants. Your labor doesn't count.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_v_Baxendale

@Cole_Robbie
Are bigger plants with more fruit worth more?

Forgive the tangent, but it reminded me of a friend's son who was suspended three (3) days for mooning a car in an Omaha, NE HS parking lot.

Were that the penalty for 1st offense mooning back in the day, a coupla of my pals (present company INcluded) would be doing life without parole...

The Gotch

Shule wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 12:56 am @Cole_Robbie
Are bigger plants with more fruit worth more?

They should be, but in order to set the value, one would have to find them for sale somewhere. If no one was selling that product, it would be nearly impossible to put a price on them.

The Hadley case about damages needing to be foreseeable applies here. For example, the last time I looked, a pound of Rutgers tomato seed was about 40 bucks. Imagine the money a person could spend growing out 100,000+ plants. But if those seeds turned out to be the wrong variety, your damages are limited to just the 40 bucks you spent on the seed itself.

@Cole_Robbie

Thanks.