GUNDERSONS, INC. v. TULL
678 P.2d 1061 (1983)
Colorado Court of Appeals, Div. I.
November 23, 1983.
With respect to the salary of plaintiff's superintendent, plaintiff failed to mitigate damages. Here, plaintiff retained the superintendent not because he might be needed on the Ptarmigan golf course job, but "on the assumption that [plaintiff] might require his services on future projects."
Plaintiff does not argue that its company had a long term employment contract with the superintendent or, in short, that there was any legal impediment to laying off the superintendent. Therefore, since the superintendent's salary was an avoidable expense and since plaintiff failed to mitigate its damages by temporarily laying off the superintendent, the plaintiff is not entitled to recover the sum it spent to retain the superintendent on its payroll during the period he would have worked on the golf course had the contract not been breached.
B.The second consequential damage for which plaintiff seeks recovery is its costs for maintaining long term leases on equipment dedicated to the Ptarmigan project and left idle by the breach of contract. These lease costs extended from December 1, 1979, through March of 1980.
Defendant argues that plaintiff should not be allowed to recover the money paid for equipment leases for two reasons. First, defendant argues that all of plaintiff's equipment on the Ptarmigan job was leased from Fairway Leasing Company, which is a partnership owned by the Gunderson brothers who are president and vice president of plaintiff corporation. However,
since there is no disregard of corporate formalities on the part of plaintiff corporation and no suggestion by defendant that this court should pierce the corporate veil of plaintiff corporation, the relationship between plaintiff corporation and Fairway Leasing Company has no bearing on plaintiff's ability to recover damages for long term equipment leases. Defendant's second argument against plaintiff recovering money paid for long term equipment leases is that Colorado does not allow such recovery. In support of this proposition, defendant cites Uinta Oil Refining Co., et al., v. Ledford,125 Colo. 429, 244 P.2d 881 (1952). In Uinta, our Supreme Court held, with regard to a defendant's claim for expenses incurred in conjunction with a contract breached by the plaintiff: "When defendant made his investment in trucks, tanks and equipment in order to carry out his contract with plaintiff, he did so at his own risk, knowing that these items would constitute at least a part of his cost of doing business under the agreement."