Fuller v. Smith
| Decision Date | 29 September 1910 |
| Citation | 107 Me. 161,77 A. 706 |
| Parties | FULLER v. SMITH. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Exceptions from Superior Court, Cumberland County.
Action by H. Granger Fuller against Harry L. Smith. Verdict for defendant, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Exceptions sustained.
Action brought in the superior court, Cumberland county, to recover damages for an alleged breach of the following contract:
Plea, the general issue with brief statement as follows: "That from January 1, 1909, to June 20, 1909, said plaintiff was employed by him, but, finding the plaintiff remiss, heedless, and failing to devote his business time and energy to the defendant's business as required by the said contract, the defendant reproved him for being so remiss, heedless, neglectful, and so failing to devote his business time and energy to the defendant's business, and on or about June 26, 1909, discharged him for good cause, whereupon subsequently, to wit, on or about July 3d, a new contract was entered into by mutual consent between said parties and continued in force the remainder of the year."
Verdict for defendant. The plaintiff excepted to several rulings made during the trial.
The case is stated in the opinion.
Argued before EMERY, C. J., and SAVAGE, PEABODY, SPEAR, CORNISH, and KING, JJ.
Frank H. Haskell, for plaintiff.
Harry C. Wilbur and Carroll W. Morrill, for defendant.
This is an action for breach of a contract of employment, and comes before this court on plaintiffs exceptions.
January 1, 1909, the plaintiff entered into the employ of the defendant for one year under a written contract, and so continued until Saturday, June 26, 1909, when he was wrongfully discharged, as he claimed. At the time of the discharge, the defendant called the plaintiff into his office, figured the balance due him for wages and expenses as $21.06, about which there was no dispute, and passed him a receipt filled out for that sum saying, "You sign this, and I will give you a check." The plaintiff refused to sign the receipt because it contained the words, "In full of all contracts written and verbal," whereupon the defendant asked, "You aren't going to do anything are you?" and the plaintiff replied, "That remains to be seen." The conversation was then interrupted, and nothing more was said as to the check or receipt. On Monday following the plaintiff received through the mail from the defendant a check for the $21.06. He cashed the check and retained the proceeds.
The defendant claimed, and the jury specially found, that a letter from him to the plaintiff was sent to and received by the plaintiff together with the check.
The letter was as follows:
Due from me to you, 1 week's salary to Saturday night June 26th, being the last week of your notice
$20 00
Claimed by you as traveling expenses.
At the trial the defendant contended that the plaintiff's acceptance of the check for $21.06 after the receipt of the letter was an accord and satisfaction of his claim for damages as sued for. And as to that contention the presiding judge evidently took the same view, for, after stating fully and correctly the essential elements of a valid accord and satisfaction, he expressly instructed the jury as a matter of law that, if the plaintiff did receive the letter with the check, his acceptance of the check constituted an accord and satisfaction that would prevent his recovery in this action. To that instruction the plaintiff excepted.
It is objected by the defendant in argument that the plaintiff's bill of exceptions is insufficient, in that it contains an extended extract from the judge's charge, and does not show with sufficient explicitness what specific instructions were excepted to.
But we think this objection is not maintainable. It is manifestly clear that the exceptions were taken to the one central idea of the instructions upon this point which was unmistakably expressed by the presiding judge in these words:
The jury found specially that the plaintiff did receive the original letter with the check, and accordingly returned a general verdict for the defendant.
The question presented by this exception then is whether the plaintiff's acceptance of the check, after the interview in the office and the receipt of the letter which accompanied the check, so conclusively establishes an accord and satisfaction or settlement of his claim for damages against the defendant for wrongfully discharging him as to leave no question of fact for the jury to determine.
The statute of this state (Rev. St. c. 84, § 59) provides: "No action shall be maintained on a demand settled by a creditor or his attorney entrusted to collect it in full discharge thereof by the receipt of money or other valuable considerations however small."
Under this statute, an accord and satisfaction is an executed agreement, whereby one party gives and the other receives, in satisfaction of a demand, liquidated or unliquidated, some money or other valuable consideration, however small. No invariable rule can be laid down as to what constitutes such an agreement, and each case must be determined largely on its own peculiar facts. The agreement need not be express, but may be implied from the circumstances and the conduct of the parties. It must be shown, however, that the debtor tendered the amount in satisfaction of the particular demand, and that it was accepted by the creditor as such. These principles are elementary. But we quote with approval the following language of Pierpont, J., in the leading case of Preston v. Grant, 34 Vt. 203, as concisely expressing the rule applicable to this case: "To constitute an accord and satisfaction, it is necessary that the money should be offered in satisfaction of the claim, and the offer accompanied with such acts and declarations as amount to a condition that, if the money is accepted, it is accepted in satisfaction, and such that the party to whom it is offered is bound to understand therefrom that, if he takes it, he takes it subject to such condition."
To justify the instruction of the presiding judge that, if the letter was received with the check, the verdict must be for the defendant as a matter of law, it must appear that the only permissible inference to be drawn from the letter and from all the other facts and circumstances as to the tender and acceptance of the check is that it was...
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