Fowler v. The Great Southern Telephone & Telegraph Company
| Decision Date | 01 January 1900 |
| Docket Number | 13,480 |
| Parties | JOSEPH J. FOWLER v. THE GREAT SOUTHERN TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH COMPANY |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Civil District Court, Parish of Orleans -- Ellis, J.
Gustave V. Soniat and S. S. Jones, for Plaintiff, Appellant.
Denegre Blair & Denegre, for Defendant, Appellee.
The cause of action herein set forth is a claim for compensation growing out of plaintiff's incumbency of the positions of Secretary and General Manager of defendant corporation.
1897, to March, 1898, at $ 250 per month
2,750 00
Total amount claimed
From a judgment in his favor for $ 68.66, plaintiff prosecutes this appeal.
In this court defendant files answer, praying rejection of the demand in toto.
Plaintiff filled the positions of Secretary and General Manager of the company. This is not disputed.
He claims that to the office of Secretary there was attached an annual salary of $ 300, to which he is entitled.
Defendant denies this, and avers that the Secretaryship as filled by plaintiff was not a salaried office, that no salary was ever agreed to be paid him as such, that he never demanded any during the nine years he filled the position, and that the claim therefor now made is an afterthought -- taking shape only after his resignation from the company's service had been demanded and given.
Plaintiff claims that to the office of General Manager was attached an annual salary of $ 3,000.00; that his employment in that capacity was by the year; that he had filled the position for many years and was last elected thereto by the Board of Directors in March, 1897, for one year; and that his resignation having been called for one month later, amounting to a discharge without cause, he is entitled to the remaining eleven months' salary.
Defendant denies that he was or could be elected General Manager for any specified period, for the reason that the by-laws of the company expressly declare that persons chosen by the Board of Directors to that office, and other offices of the company, shall hold their positions during the pleasure of the board.
With regard to the claim for salary as Secretary, it is not sustained.
The minutes of defendant company of May 11, 1886, show that Paul J. Marrs was elected Secretary and Treasurer, and that his salary as such was fixed at $ 25.00 per month.
The minutes of the following year (May 10, 1887) show that the salary of the Secretary and Treasurer was to be the "same as last year," and that Paul J. Marrs was again elected to fill those offices.
The following year (1888) Marrs was re-elected Secretary and Treasurer, but nothing was said about salary.
The next year (1889) a change in the offices was made. W. H Boffinger was elected Vice President and Treasurer; Fowler (plaintiff) was elected General Manager and Secretary; and Paul J. Marrs was elected Assistant Secretary and his salary as such was fixed at "$ 50.00 per annum from this date." No mention was made of any salary for the secretary, or the treasurer, and no mention appears of any salary for these positions in any of the meetings of the Board of Directors from that date down to the present time.
Plaintiff continued to be elected each year to both positions -- Secretary and General Manager; Paul J. Marrs to the position of Assistant Secretary; and Boffinger to those of Vice President and Treasurer.
We attach little or no importance to the circumstance that sometimes, at the meetings of the Board, plaintiff was elected Secretary and General Manager by one motion or vote which included both positions; at other times by separate motion or vote -- one for each position.
This claim by plaintiff for salary as Secretary is based entirely upon the minutes of May 11, 1886, fixing the salary of the Secretary and Treasurer, Paul J. Marrs, at $ 25.00 per month, and the minutes of May 10, 1887, continuing that salary to Marrs for those positions for another year.
It is not asserted and is not the fact that any salary as Secretary was ever fixed for plaintiff individually, or mentioned in connection with the office at any of the elections whereat he was chosen to the position.
On the contrary, it is shown by the testimony of the President of the company that the main purpose of associating the office of Secretary with that of the General Manager and electing Mr. Fowler to both was one of economy -- to save the salary of $ 300.00 per annum which had theretofore been paid to Paul J. Marrs as Secretary and Treasurer.
After May, 1889, it appears that no compensation was ever voted to either the Secretary or the Treasurer.
It is also shown that in October, 1892, at the time Fowler's salary as General Manager was increased from $ 2,400 to $ 3,000 per annum, all the services he was then rendering were taken into consideration.
At no time after his election as Secretary in 1889, did Fowler ever lay claim to compensation for services rendered in that capacity.
He allowed nine years to elapse, during all of which time he drew monthly his salary as General Manager, but claimed nothing as Secretary.
He asserted no claim to such salary until his official connection with the company had been severed. He never communicated to the President of the company, nor to its Board of Directors, his understanding that he was to draw a salary as Secretary.
As General Manager he had supervision of all the pay rolls; his approval of all pay rolls and vouchers was required. None of the pay rolls or vouchers ever bore his name and salary as Secretary, though they bore the names and salaries of all other officers of the company, including his own as General Manager.
At one time, in consequence of illness, he asked permission of the President to over-draw his salary as General Manager. Yet at that very time, according to his present contention, he had to his credit and on deposit with the company a comfortable sum as salary as Secretary. He set up no claim in that period of pressing necessity to this fund.
During his administration as General Manager, it was his duty from time to time to make reports to the Board of Directors of the general expenses of the New Orleans office, and of the net revenues derived therefrom. Yet he never once, in these reports, carried this claim for salary as Secretary as an outstanding liability of the...
To continue reading
Request your trial