Grant v. New Departure Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 16 May 1912
• Citation: 83 A. 212,85 Conn. 421
• Parties: GRANT v. NEW DEPARTURE MFG. CO.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

83 A. 212

85 Conn. 421

GRANT v. NEW DEPARTURE MFG. CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

May 16, 1912

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Hartford County; John Coats Judge.

Action by Robert H. Grant against the New Departure Manufacturing Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals alleging errors in rulings and findings of the court. Affirmed.

Wheeler J., dissenting in part.

The defendant, desiring a superintendent for its ball-bearing department, made the plaintiff a proposition to serve it in that capacity. The plaintiff asked time to consider the proposition, and a few days later, on January 25th, wrote them a letter which read: " I have carefully considered your proposition to take charge of your ball department and any other branch of the business you may see fit to give me for $2,500 per annum for the first year and advances as fast as the departments show that they are profitable to the company. If you will kindly send me a contract for the first year as above, I will be with you on the first of the month ready to start in and give you the benefit of my knowledge in the lines mentioned above." To this the defendant on January 27th replied as follows: " Yours of the 25th instant to hand and we are pleased to note that you will be with us on the 1st of February, upon the terms and under conditions as gone into verbally when you were here last. The salary for the first year will be $2,500. The more valuable you make yourself to us, the better it will please us, and your salary will be governed accordingly. Regarding contracts, would say that there isn't a person in our employ, including the three officers, who has a contract of any kind with this company, and in taking this up with our Mr. Rockwell he stated that he thought inasmuch as this had not been the custom heretofore, we had better not depart from what has been an old-established rule. At the same time you need not anticipate any trouble as to the treatment you will receive from the hands of this company. Our Mr. Rockwell is most broad in his treatment of these matters and I am sure your new connection will prove most profitable for all concerned. Unless we hear from you to the contrary we will expect you here on the 1st proximo." These letters were in evidence, and also oral testimony tending to show what occurred at the interview between the parties. The plaintiff entered upon the employment on February 1, 1909, and continued in it until October 1, 1909, when, against his will, he was discharged by the defendant.

Josiah H. Peck, of Hartford, and Newell Jennings, of Bristol, for appellant.

Clifford H. Bell and John W. Joy, both of Hartford, for appellee.

THAYER, J. (after stating the facts as above).

If the plaintiff was employed for a year at a salary of $2,500, as he claims, then his discharge by the defendant before the end of the year was a breach of its contract.

It appears that, prior to the writing of the letters which passed between the parties, the latter had met and talked over the defendant's requirements and the plaintiff's experience and qualifications. The defendant then offered the plaintiff employment as mechanic and supervisor of its ball department at a salary of $2,500 for the first year. The plaintiff requested time to consider the proposition. The letters then passed between the parties, and pursuant thereto the plaintiff came on from his home in Pennsylvania and entered upon the employment on February 1, 1909. The defendant correctly says that any parol contract made prior to February 1st for a year's employment to begin on that date would be within the statute of frauds and that proof of such contract would be insufficient to establish the contract alleged. But what occurred before the letters were written is competent to show the circumstances under which they were written as an aid to their interpretation.

The plaintiff's letter states the terms of the original proposition and manifestly was intended as an acceptance of it. That the defendant so understood it appears from its reply. It says therein that it is pleased to note that the plaintiff will be with it on the 1st of February upon the terms and conditions which had been gone into verbally at the time of the interview and that his salary will be $2,500 for the first year. Had the letter ended here, it would have been, in view of the circumstances under which it was written, a sufficient memorandum of a contract for a year to justify the court in its finding of such a contract. Maynard v. Royal Worcester Corset Co., 200 Mass. 1, 6, 85 N.E. 877. The defendant does not seriously contend that it would not, but says that it appears by the letters that the plaintiff asked for a contract for a year and that the defendant refused to make such a contract. Is this the proper construction of the language of these letters? The plaintiff's request was that " a contract for the first year as above" be sent him, showing that it was the written evidence of the contract which his acceptance of the defendant's proposition had created which he requested. The terms were agreed upon. He asked for a written contract as evidence of those terms. Apparently the defendant so understood it. It declined to send such a contract, not because there was no agreement for a year's service, but because it did not give contracts to its employé s, and chose not to depart in this case from an old-established rule. It said, " There isn't a person in our employ, including three officers, who has a contract of any kind with the company." It cannot be considered that this statement was correct unless the reference was to written contracts. Undoubtedly the writer meant that none of its employé s, including the officers, had written contracts of employment. The language is that of a person excusing himself for refusing to send a writing embodying an agreement already made for a year's services, rather than that of one refusing to enter into such an agreement. There was no error in the court's holding that there was a contract for a year of which the defendant's letter was a sufficient memorandum to satisfy the statute.

The foregoing renders it unnecessary to consider the defendant's request that paragraphs 11 and 12 of the finding be stricken out as having been found without evidence to support them. The plaintiff having produced a sufficient memorandum in writing of the contract, the finding that the contract was renewed orally on the morning of February 1st has no significance, and the defendant is not harmed by the finding.

Nor is the defendant harmed by the finding (also complained of as having been found without evidence), that from the time of his discharge...