Bakshian v. Hassanoff
| Citation | 186 Mass. 255,71 N.E. 555 |
| Parties | BAKSHIAN v. HASSANOFF. |
| Decision Date | 24 June 1904 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Whipple, Sears &
Ogden, for plaintiff.
Chas W. Spencer, for defendant.
After the parties were at issue upon a bill in equity and a cross-bill, the two actions were referred to a master, under a rule which is not shown to have required him to report the evidence, or any part thereof. Exceptions were taken by the defendant to the master's report, it was recommitted, and a supplemental report was made, to which the defendant took exceptions. He also moved to recommit the cases to the master for the second time. Thereafter a final decree was entered denying the motion to recommit, overruling both sets of the defendant's exceptions to the report, confirming the original report as modified by the supplemental report, and ordering judgment to be entered for the plaintiff in the sum of $351, found due him by the master, with interest and costs. The record contains no statement of the evidence which was before the master, and the case is here upon the defendant's appeal from the final decree.
The bill in which the decree was entered was brought for breach of an agreement entered into between the parties under date of March 21, 1901, whereby the plaintiff was to be in the employment of the defendant for one year at a salary of $10 a week, as manager of a business of selling oriental rugs, and was to assist the defendant in selling rugs and carpets, and also was to have one-half of the profits of the business; and there was also a claim for money paid. The cross-bill set up an alleged indebtedness due from the plaintiff in the bill to the defendant on account of an unpaid loan made before the contract of March 21, 1901. The answer to the cross-bill admitted the loan, but alleged that it had been overpaid. The original report of the master found that, upon the matters alleged in the cross-bill and the answer thereto, the claims of each party offset those of the other. The report found in favor of the plaintiff on the matters at issue in the original bill, and awarded him a sum ascertained by allowing him $520 for the year's wages, and $50 for cash expended and deducting $81 for cash paid by the defendant. No allowance was made for profits; the master finding that they were too conjectural, no business having been done
Two exceptions were filed to this report by the defendant. The first was that the master erred in ruling that, as to the alleged loan, the claims of each offset the claims of the other, and that there was nothing due the defendant on March 21, 1901. The second exception was that the master erred in finding the plaintiff entitled to recover for his services for one year. The case then came on to be heard on the respondent's motion to recommit, and the report was recommitted, with a memorandum stating that the plaintiff, having brought his suit before the end of the contract term, was not entitled to recover his wages, as such, but unliquidated damages for breach of contract; that, in estimating such damages, the court has the right to take into account the wages which the plaintiff would have earned, but the wages are not necessarily the measure of damages (citing Paige v. Barrett, 151 Mass. 67, 68, 23 N.E. 725, and Cutter v. Gillette, 163 Mass. 95, 97, 39 N.E. 1010), and that, as the master appeared to have proceeded upon an erroneous theory of the law, the report was recommitted, with instructions to report the facts upon that single point. Thereafter the supplemental report was made, stating that the master found that the plaintiff made due and reasonable efforts to procure employment of the same character as called for by his agreement with the defendant; that he had found employment for a part of the time, and received therefor $138; and finding and reporting that the plaintiff, under his own bill, was entitled to recover the sum of $351. On the coming in of this report, the defendant moved to recommit it for a fuller report of the facts on which the master based his findings, and especially as to what efforts the...
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