Eldridge v. Stewart

• Decision Date: 11 April 1896
• Parties: ELDRIDGE v. STEWART.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

97 Iowa 689

66 N.W. 891

ELDRIDGE

v.STEWART.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 11, 1896.

Appeal from district court, Cerro Gordo county; P. W. Burr, Judge.

Action for wages. Trial to a jury. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.Richard Wilbur and Cliggitt & Rule, for appellant.

Glass & McConlogue, for appellee.

KINNE, J.

1. Plaintiff alleged that he entered into defendant's employment on July 30, 1892, at the agreed price of $50 per month to take care of and track horses and such work as is required in caring for stallions, brood mares, and trotting horses, and continued in said employment until July 17, 1893; that he had been paid $373; that the argeement for the $50 per month was until January 1, 1893, and nothing further was said as to wages; that plaintiff's services were reasonably worth $50 per month for the time after January 1, 1893, and there is $204.40 due him. Defendant answered, admitting that plaintiff's wages should be $50 per month to January 1, 1893, and averring that at said time it was agreed that plaintiff's wages should thereafter be $45 per month. In a counterclaim he alleged: That plaintiff was employed in his (defendant's) stables while the defendant was engaged in the business of standing blooded stallions. That he had appointed plaintiff his general superintendent to, in his (defendant's) absence in Europe, have care of breeding said stallions according to the wishes of defendant's patrons. “That at said time defendant had in his stable, and under plaintiff's control, a stallion called ‘Manchester C,’ to which one I. L. Potter, a patron of defendant, was desirous of breeding mares, and placed said mares in defendant's stable in the care and control of plaintiff, with the express understanding, as plaintiff well knew, that said mares were to be bred to said stallion; but that plaintiff betrayed the trust confided in him, and willfully, wantonly, and maliciously bred one of said mares to another stallion of defendant's, against the will, and without the knowledge or consent, of defendant or of said patron. That the said Potter had other mares which he contracted to breed to said stallion for the same and the following year, but afterwards learned of plaintiff's breach of trust, and thereby lost his confidence in defendant's stables, and refused to patronize defendant and his stables, and demanded, and defendant was forced to pay, said Potter the sum of $100 damages for plaintiff's said act; and said act became known to many other patrons of defendant, whereby the reputation and standing of defendant's stables became impaired, to his damage, compensatory and exemplary, in the sum of $500, for which he asks judgment.” Plaintiff, in a reply, denied all of the allegations of...