Page v. New England Telephone & Telegraph Co.

The plaintiff, a surgeon, brought an action against the defendant, alleging negligence and breach of contract in failing to list the plaintiff in the Yellow Pages of its 1976 telephone directory for the Springfield area. See Pupillo v. New England Tel & Tel. Co., 381 Mass. 714 (1980); Annot., 92 A.L.R.2d 917, 920 (1963). At the close of the plaintiff s evidence the judge directed a verdict for the defendant on the negligence count. On the contract count, he instructed the jury that damages “cannot be by conjecture, surmise or guesswork, or by sympathy. They have to be actually proven to you.”…