Blanton v. Knox

• Decision Date: 30 April 1834
• Citation: Blanton v. Knox, 3 Mo. 342 (Mo. 1834)
• Parties: BLANTON v. KNOX.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

3 Mo. 342

BLANTON

v.KNOX.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

April Term, 1834.

MCGIRK, C. J.

An action of debt was brought before a justice of the peace for $42.The plaintiff had judgment.The defendant appealed to the Circuit Court, where the plaintiff again recovered judgment.The record shows the case to be, that on the 10th day of Sept. 1832, Blanton hired to Knox a negro woman for one year, the services to commence on the 14th of the same month, when Blanton was to deliver the slave into the possession of Knox.Knox was to clothe the negro.Blanton delivered the possession of the woman to Knox on the day specified.The services were performed.

There is some evidence to show that on the 22d day of the same month, Blanton and Knox rehearsed the contract in the presence of each other before witnesses, when both acknowledged the contract to be as above stated.This contract was not in writing.

On the trial the counsel for Knox prayed the court to instruct the jury, that unless they found this contract was in writing, they must find for the defendant; which instruction the court refused, but instructed the jury that if they found the contract was not in writing, yet if they found that the defendant acknowledged the contract within the year from the end of the service, then the case would not be within the statute of frauds, though they should find the contract was not in writing.To the refusing to give the instructions asked, and to the giving the instructions given, the defendant excepted.

The question raised in this case is, whether the contract is within the 1st section of the aet defining the effect of contracts and promises;Rev. Code, 214.The words of the act relating to this subject are, “that no action shall be brought upon any agreement, that is not to be performed within one year from the making thereof, unless the agreement upon which the action shall be brought, or some memorandum thereof, shall be in writing and signed by the party to to be charged therewith.”

It is insisted by Mr. Hunt for Knox, that this statute protects him from the payment of the money promised for the service, and to prove this more fully he cites Chitty on Contracts, 208-9, where Chitty refers to a case reported in 1 B. and A. 722, where it was decided that no action lay on a contract for a year's service made on the 27th of May, to commence on the 30th June following, unless it be in writing.Messrs. Campbell and Wells, for Blanton, cite and rely on Chitty likewise, p. 109, where Chitty refers to 11 E. 152, and 1 B. and A. 727, where it seems to be decided that an action may be maintained on an unwritten contract for the sale of goods to be delivered within a year, though the payment for the goods was to be made 18 months after the contract was ...