Heaton v. Eldridge

• Decision Date: 09 March 1897
• Citation: 56 Ohio St. 87,46 N.E. 638
• Parties: HEATON v. ELDRIDGE et al.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

46 N.E. 638

56 Ohio St. 87

HEATON v. ELDRIDGE et al.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

March 9, 1897

Error to circuit court, Franklin county.

Action was brought by Eliza Heaton against Eldridge & Higgins in the court of common pleas, on several promissory notes executed by the defendants, amounting, in the aggregate, to something over $2,000. The answer set up a counterclaim for damages resulting from the breach of an oral agreement which, it was alleged, had been entered into by the parties whereby the plaintiff agreed to employ the defendants as her agents for the sale of cigars of the plaintiff's manufacture, at a stipulated compensation, and for a specified time, extending beyond the period of one year. The agreement, it is averred, was made and to be performed in the state of Pennsylvania, where the law did not require contracts of that kind to be in writing, nor a written memorandum thereof to be signed by either party, nor forbid the bringing of an action thereon. The alegations of the answer were specifically denied by reply, and at the trial the plaintiff interposed the statute of frauds of this state to the evidence offered in support of them. The evidence offered to establish the agreement, which consisted of oral testimony only, was excluded from the consideration of the jury; and, there being no defense to the notes, judgment was rendered for the plaintiff for the amount due on them. The judgment was reversed by the circuit court, for error in the exclusion of the testimony, that court holding that, as the contract was valid where it was made, our statute was not an obstacle to its enforcement here; and whether that holding is correct is the only question brought before this court. Reversed.

The statute of frauds requiring a memorandum in writing of contracts not to be performed within a year affects the remedy merely, and therefore governs in an action on such a contract made in another state, though by the laws of such state no memorandum may have been required.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Contracts receive their sanction from the law of the place where they are executed and to be performed, and their interpretation is controlled by that law; but the remedy upon the contract will be administered according to the law of the place where the remedy is sought.

2. Section 4199 of the Revised Statutes prescribes a rule of procedure to be observed by courts whose jurisdiction is invoked for the enforcement of contracts to which the statute relates; and the mode and measure of proof required by the statute are indispensable to the establishment of such agreements, wherever they may have been made.

3. An agreement which, by its terms, is not to be performed within one year from the time it was made, will not be enforced in this state, unless the agreement, or some memorandum or note thereof, is in writing, and signed by the party to be charged or by some person authorized by him to sign it, although the agreement was made in another state or country, where it was competent to prove the same by parol evidence.

Holmes & Huling and Harry H. McMahon, for plaintiff in error.

Powell, Owen, Ricketts & Black, for defendants in error.

WILLIAMS, J. (after stating the facts).

It is provided by section 4199 of the Revised Statutes that ‘no action shall be brought * * * upon any agreement that is not to be performed within the space of one year from the making thereof; unless the agreement upon which such action is brought, or some memorandum or note thereof, is in writing, and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or some person thereunto by him or her lawfully authorized.’ There is no doubt that the law of the state or country where a contract is executed and is to be performed enters into and becomes a part of the contract, in the sense that its validity and obligatory effect are to be determined and controlled by that law; and when valid there, the contract will be sustained everywhere, and accorded the interpretation required by the law of the place where made, when the law is properly brought to the attention of the court, unless the contract is against good morals or contravenes a settled policy of the state or country in whose tribunals its enforcement is sought. The rule is founded on the presumption that parties contract with reference to the laws to which they are subject at the time, and on the principles of comity prevailing among civilized nations; but it does not extend so far that the remedial system and methods of procedure established by one state or country will yield to those of another, nor that either will recognize or enforce those of the other. Each provides and alters at will its own rules and regulations in the administration of justice, to which those seeking redress in its courts must conform. So that the solution of the question presented involves the inquiry whether the provision of the statute above quoted appertains to the remedy on contracts to which it refers, or goes to their validity. We have found no expression on the question by this court, though it has been the subject of repeated adjudications both in England and several of the states. The provision of our statute is copied from the fourth section of the English statute of frauds, and in the case of Leroux v. Brown, 12 C. B. 801, where the precise question we have before us arose, it was held that the section affected the remedy only, and was so applied as to defeat a recovery covery on a parol contract not to be performed within a year, which was made in France, where it was capable of proof by parol evidence. The case appears to have been thoroughly argued and considered, and the decision has since been adhered to by the English courts, and is followed or cited with approbation by many American cases, and generally accepted by text writers as the established law. Bain v. Railroad Co., 3 H. L. Cas. 1; Williams v. Wheeler, 8 C. B. (N. S.) 316; Maddison v. Alderson, 8 App. Cas. 467, 488; Pritchard v. Norton, 106 U.S. 127, 1 Sup.Ct. 102;Downer v. Chesebrough, 36 Conn. 39;Townsend v. Hargraves, 118 Mass. 326;Bird v. Munroe, 66 Me. 337;Emery v. Burbank, 163 Mass. 326, 39...