Greer v. Arlington Mills Manufacturing Company

• Decision Date: 10 March 1899
• Citation: 43 A. 609,17 Del. 581
• Court: Delaware Superior Court
• Parties: JOHN GREER v. THE ARLINGTON MILLS MANUFACTURING COMPANY, a Corporation of the State of Delaware

43 A. 609

17 Del. 581

JOHN GREER v. THE ARLINGTON MILLS MANUFACTURING COMPANY, a Corporation of the State of Delaware

Superior Court of Delaware, New Castle County

March 10, 1899

Superior Court, New Castle County, February Term, 1899.

ACTION on the case (Nos. 136 and 137--consolidated--February Term 1898). See facts in the charge of court.

Verdict for defendant.

Robert G. Harman and Horace Greeley Knowles for plaintiff.

Levi C Bird and Andrew E. Sanborn for defendant.

PENNEWILL and BOYCE, J. J., sitting.

OPINION

PENNEWILL, J. charging the jury:

Gentlemen of the jury:--John Greer, the plaintiff in this suit, alleges that he entered into a contract or agreement with the Arlington Mills Manufacturing Company, the defendant, on March 17, 1886, under which he was to receive $ 5000.00 a year for his services as manager of said Arlington Mills Manufacturing Company, and that in pursuance of said contract, he, the plaintiff, did act as said manager from March 17, 1886, up to about the last of the year, in December, 1896, at which time he was discharged by the defendant without any sufficient cause and without any fault on his part. He contends that the original hiring in 1886 was a hiring for a period of one year, and having continued to render the same service after the first year, it became therefore a hiring from year to year, subject to the same terms and conditions as in the contract of the first year. He insists, therefore, that having been discharged in December, 1896, when the year of employment would not have expired until March 17, 1897, and for no fault of his, he is entitled in law to recover in this action the proportion of the salary for a year which the time from the date of discharge till March 17, 1897, bears to the whole year, to wit, about one-quarter of a year's salary. This is his claim for salary. He also claims that on March 22, 1892, the defendant agreed to give him 2 1/2 per cent. of the net profits of the business of the Arlington Mills Manufacturing Company, in addition to the salary mentioned in the original contract, but concedes that the only year in which there were any such net profits that could be recovered in this action was the year 1893. He also alleges that there is due and owing to him from the defendant the further sum of $ 42.50 for services rendered between the date of discharge and the 17th day of March, 1897.

The defendant, on the other hand, avers that the plaintiff together with his brother Joseph Greer, was employed to manage the business of the mills in consideration of the sum of $ 5000.00 per annum, beginning on the 19th day of March, 1886; but denies that such hiring was for the period of one year. It insists that such hiring was for an indefinite period, and claims that the defendant had the right at any time to terminate the agreement without assigning any reason or cause therefor. The defendant therefore contends that the plaintiff has no right to recover any salary for the time intervening between the date of discharge and the 17th of March, 1897, and asks the court to so instruct you. This request or prayer makes it necessary for us to consider and determine the question whether the contract relied on by the plaintiff for his claim of salary was a contract for a year, or only a contract at a fixed salary for an indefinite period and subject to be terminated at any time at the option of either of the parties thereto. This is a very important question in this case and we have considered it as fully and carefully as we were able to do. We do not find that this question has ever been distinctly passed upon by any court in this state. It is, so far as we are able to tell, a new question here, although frequently judicially considered in England, and in some of the states of our own country. And such a contract of hiring as the one before us has been quite uniformly held in England to import a hiring for a year, although the rule has not been inflexible even there, where originally the question generally arose not between master and servant, but in settlement cases. In this country, however, the contrary doctrine seems to prevail, although some decisions have followed the English rule. But it will be found upon examination, we think, that such authorities are for the most part either based almost, if not entirely, upon English text books and decisions, or upon some particular facts or circumstances surrounding the parties and the transaction in the particular case, indicating the intention of the parties. For example, Story in his work on Master and Servant, Sec. 952 c., says: "When there is a general hiring and nothing is said as to its duration, and no stipulation as to payments being made which may govern its interpretation, the contract is understood to be for a year, and the reason for this rule is said to be that both master and servant may have the benefit of all the seasons. This rule applies to the hiring of all menial, household and trade servants, reporters of newspapers, servants in husbandry, &c.--" Every authority cited by Story to sustain the text is an English case, and not one in this country is mentioned. Wood, in his Law of Master and Servant, Sec. 134, very clearly states the difference between the rule which obtains in this country and the one in England, and I can find it nowhere more intelligently and satisfactorily stated. It is as follows:

"In England it is held that a general hiring, or a hiring by the terms of which no time is fixed, is a hiring for a year, and that the rule applies to all contracts of hiring and service, whether of domestic or other servants, of whatever class or grade, and this rule is regarded as applying in all cases, except where there is some custom relating to the matter in reference to which the parties are presumed to have contracted, or where the terms of the contract, or the nature of the service is such as to rebut the presumption that a yearly hiring was intended. But according to the English decisions upon the subject, a general hiring is merely presumed to be a hiring for a year, and may be rebutted by proof, or even by other presumptions raised by circumstances surrounding the transactions that tend to rebut any such presumption." * * * *

"I have referred to this rule of the English courts and its peculiarities, not because it has any applicability to the law upon these questions as administered by our courts, but because English cases upon this question are frequently cited by lawyers as applicable upon similar questions in our own courts; but I am aware of no instance in which, for many years, the rule has been approved by any American court. It must be remembered that these questions, in England, generally arise, not between the master and servant, but in settlement cases, where it is sought to charge a pauper upon a community by showing that he acquired a settlement there by having been hired to serve, and having actually served under a contract for a yearly hiring, one year.

With us the rule is inflexible, that a general or indefinite hiring is prima facie a hiring at will, and if the servant seeks to make it out a yearly hiring, the burden is upon him to establish it by proof. A hiring at so much a day, week, month or year, no time being specified, is an indefinite hiring, and no presumption attaches that it was for a day even, but only at the rate fixed for whatever time the party may serve. It is competent for either party to show what the mutual understanding of the parties was in reference to the matter; but unless their understanding was mutual that the service was to extend for certain fixed and definite period, it is an indefinite hiring and is determinable at the will of either party, and in this respect there is no distinction between domestic and other servants." * * *

"But a contract to pay one $ 800 a year for services is not a contract for a year, but a contract to pay at the rate of $ 800 a year for services actually rendered, and is determinable at will by either party. Thus it will be seen that the fact that the compensation is measured at so much a day, month or year, does not necessarily make such hiring a hiring for a day, month or year, but that in all such cases the contract may be put an end to by either party at any time, unless the time is fixed, and a recovery had at the rate fixed, for the services actually rendered."

In the case of Martin vs. Insurance Company, 148 N.Y 117, 42 N.E. 416, in the Court of Appeals, and which seems to be the leading case on the subject in this country, it appears that the plaintiff entered the employ of the defendant in 1881, and was placed in charge of the real estate department at a salary of $ 5000 a year. From the first of January, 1883, he received salary at the rate of $ 6500 a year under an arrangement made in February, 1883. In February, 1884, the salary was increased to the rate of $ 10,000, payable from January 1st, 1884. Salary was paid monthly. Without further agreement of any kind plaintiff continued in the discharge of his duties until April 13, 1892, when he received a letter from the president of the defendant, notifying him that his services would not be needed after April 30, 1892. Plaintiff replied to this letter April 14, 1892, stating that he accepted the defendant's ultimatum. A week later he wrote a second letter in which he sought to explain the first one as follows, viz: "What I meant then and what I mean now is, that while I concede your power to dispense with my services after April 30th, I do not concede your power to break my contract with the company without making the company liable to me. I wish you to distinctly understand that my employment is, and has been since January 1, 1884, a yearly one, at a...