Hamlin v. Race
| Citation | 1875 WL 8503,78 Ill. 422 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Illinois |
| Decision Date | 30 September 1875 |
| Parties | HAMLIN, HALE & CO.v.ALBERT S. RACE. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Cook county; the Hon. JOHN G. ROGERS, Judge, presiding.
Mr. ALEXANDER S. BRADLEY, for the appellants.
Mr. DAVID S. PRIDE, for the appellee. Mr. JUSTICE WALKER delivered the opinion of the Court:
Appellee was employed on the first of January, 1873, by Hamlin, Hale & Co., as a salesman in their store, for one year, at a salary of $1020, in monthly installments of $85. They, on the 23d of June following, dismissed him from their service, when they offered to pay him the amount that was due him to that date, which he declined to receive, and on the 6th of the following August brought this suit, to recover the balance for the full year, and on a trial in the court below recovered the full amount.
The declaration was in assumpsit, and contains a special count, with the usual common counts. The plea of the general issue was filed, and on the trial the defense relied on was, that appellee was discharged for good and sufficient cause. It is contended that appellee was insolent to his employers, and coarse and vulgar in his conduct, to such an extent as fully justified appellants in discharging him. This was a question of fact for the determination of the jury. All will at once concede that an employee must be respectful, and obedient to all reasonable commands of his employers, and those having control of the business in which he is employed; and no one will dispute that a person so employed, when engaged in the discharge of his business, and in his intercourse course with customers and persons transacting business with the house and with his employers, and those having charge of the business, must be respectful, and must abstain from all vulgarity and obscenity of language and conduct. If wanting in any of these requirements, it would be grounds for discharging a salesman in a store from his employment.
But the question raised and pressed on our consideration is, as to the measure for the recovery of damages in the case, appellants contending that appellee was, in no event, on the pleadings in the case, entitled to recover more than was due at the time he brought his suit; that, under the pleadings, he can not recover for the monthly installments, or any of them, which accrued after the suit was brought. On the other hand it is urged, that, as the year for which appellee was engaged had fully expired before the suit was tried, he was entitled to recover the unpaid balance of the $1020 which appellants had agreed to pay him.
Appellants contend, that, inasmuch as appellee did not, when he was discharged, terminate the contract or elect to so treat it, but, on the contrary, considered it as still subsisting, and was ready and willing to perform it in full, if required, he can only claim as damages in this suit the amount that would have been due him at the time the suit was commenced, had he continued in the employment of appellants; that if he desired to recover damages beyond that sum, he should, when discharged, have notified appellants that, as they had chosen to terminate the contract, he would treat it as rescinded, and hold them for all damages he had sustained by their terminating the agreement.
This precise question, in the shape now presented to the court, has never been passed upon by us, although analogous questions may have been.
The law is well settled, that, on a contract for the payment of money by installments, assumpsit will usually lie to recover each installment as it falls due, without waiting for the last to mature. 1 Chit. Pl. 116. Here was a sum of money to be paid by monthly installments; and there can be no doubt that appellee, at the end of each month, could have sued for and recovered for the installment which accrued and became due at that time. But it is equally well settled that a party can not, when he sues for an installment which is due, recover for installments not due when the suit was brought. And where the declaration showed, by its averments, that a recovery of installments not due was claimed, and there was a general verdict, the courts considered it ground for arresting the judgment, because the plaintiff was not entitled to recover for the portion claimed in the declaration, which was not...
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...however, both concerned the right to reject unsatisfactory goods. 4 The evolution of this doctrine is traced from Hamlin, Hale & Co. v. Race, 78 Ill. 422 (1875), where an employee was dismissed part way through his one-year term. The employee sued prior to the expiration of the term for all......
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Myers v. Mundelein College
...breach of contract does not turn solely on an interpretation of Lewis, but on an analysis of a rule first established in Hamlin, Hale & Co. v. Race, 78 Ill. 422 (1875), that damages for breach of contract beyond the date of trial are barred as speculative. This rule was reaffirmed in Mount ......
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...v. Acton, 4 C. and P. 208; Byrd v. Boyd, 4 McCord, 246; Lacy v. Osbaldiston, 8 C. & P. 80; Singer v. McCormick, 4 W. & S. 265; Hamlin et al. v. Race, 78 Ill. 422; 2 Chitty on Con. 843. Upon the question of apportionment of costs: Wickersham v. Hurd, 72 Ill. 464; Lee v. Quirk, 20 Ill. 392. M......
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