Flickema v. Henry Kraker Co.

• Decision Date: 02 December 1930
• Docket Number: Oct. Term.,No. 18,18
• Citation: 252 Mich. 406,233 N.W. 362
• Parties: FLICKEMA v. HENRY KRAKER CO. et al.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

252 Mich. 406

233 N.W. 362

FLICKEMA

v.HENRY KRAKER CO. et al.

No. 18, Oct. Term.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Dec. 2, 1930.

Error to Circuit Court, Ottawa County; Fred T. Miles, Judge.

Action by Peter Flickema against the Henry Kraker Company and another. To review a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendants bring error.

Reversed. Case dismissed as to defendant not named, and remanded for new trial as to named defendant.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Jarrett N. Clark, of Zeeland, for appellants.

Carl E. Hoffman, of Holland, for appellee.

BUTZEL, J.

Henry Kraker Company, defendant corporation, conducts a plumbing establishment on the ground floor and a small hotel on the upper floors of a building at Holland, Mich. Defendant Henry Kraker is president and general manager, and his daughter Alice is secretary and treasurer of the corporation. The latter opened the mail and answered it, took care of the books, paid the bills, and looked after the office work of the plumbing business. She also had general supervision of the hotel, paid its bills, and deposited the cash each day. Kraker devoted his time largely to the plumbing business. Plaintiff had experience in hotel work. He claims that he was hired by defendants at a salary of $175 a month to manage the hotel for a term of six months. In addition to his salary he was to have the free use of an apartment in the hotel. He was to act under the directions of Alice Kraker. Defendants claim the duration of the contract was only to be as long as the parties could get along.

Plaintiff claims that on September 5, 1928, there was delivered to him, by the night clerk of the hotel, a letter written on the letterhead of the Henry Kraker Company and signed ‘Hotel Kraker, The Henry Kraker Company, Per A. M. Kraker, Secretary.’ It summarily discharged plaintiff. Alice Kraker denies that she ever signed this letter. On the day the letter is dated, Henry Kraker was out of the city, but he returned a few days later. Upon receipt of the letter, plaintiff left the employ of the hotel. Almost immediately thereafter he wrote to the Henry Kraker Company stating that he was still ready and willing to perform his contract. Plaintiff was offered a check for the salary up to the time of his alleged dismissal, but there was written on its lower left-hand corner the words: ‘Paid in full.’ He claims that he refused to accept this check, and there is a dispute as to whether, as he claims, a check without the underwriting was given to him. Both the questions of whether the letter was signed by Alice Kraker or not, and whether the check when delivered to plaintiff contained the underwriting ‘Paid in full’ or not, are susceptible of further proof and investigation in the interest of justice. They are not merely testimony of one's recollections. Either Alice Kraker's signature is a forgery, or it is genuine; either the check bore the underwriting at the time plaintiff received it, or it did not.

Henry Kraker, upon his return, claimed that he and his daughter Alice, in an interview with plaintiff, asked him to come back, but that he refused. The jury brought in a verdict for plaintiff based on his illegal discharge in breach of a contract of employment for six months as claimed by him. Defendants sppeal and allege numerous errors.

The testimony in the case shows that Henry Kraker Company had three stockholders, Kraker, his daughter, and his wife. While plaintiff claims it was a ‘one man’ corporation, nevertheless it was a corporation and the sole person or entity with whom plaintiff did business. Both the declaration and also the judge in his charge stated that plaintiff's contract was with the corporation. Kraker personally was not liable, and the verdict, if justified, should have been against the company alone.

It is further claimed that the letter discharging plaintiff should not have been admitted in evidence because its execution by Alice Kraker was denied. While a document may not be admissible if not authenticated, nevertheless it may be proven by indirect or circumstantial evidence. In the present instance, it was shown that the letter was written on a letterhead of defendant corporation and delivered to plaintiff by the night clerk of the hotel, an employee and agent of the corporation. Furthermore, documents were produced in the handwriting of Alice Kraker so as to afford an opportunity of comparing the signature on the letter with the signature...