Hirsch v. ARCHER-DANIELS-MIDLAND COMPANY
| Decision Date | 10 July 1958 |
| Docket Number | Docket 24950.,No. 273,273 |
| Citation | 258 F.2d 44 |
| Parties | Eugen HIRSCH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ARCHER-DANIELS-MIDLAND COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Eugen Hirsch, New York City, pro se.
Freedman & Unger, New York City, for appellant.
A. Donald MacKinnon, New York City, (Edward J. Reilly, Jr. and Milbank, Tweed, Hope & Hadley, New York City, on the brief), for defendant-appellee.
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, LUMBARD, Circuit Judge, and DIMOCK, District Judge.
Plaintiff appeals from an order of Judge Ryan, Southern District of New York, dismissing his complaint and entering judgment for the defendant. Although defendant's motion was to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b) (6), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S. C.A., for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, the affidavits introduced by both parties require the motion to be treated as one for summary judgment. See Rule 12(b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The sole question is whether the complaint, together with the affidavits, "show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Rule 56, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
A chronology of events is particularly helpful in explaining our disposition of this appeal. According to his allegations, Hirsch, who for some time had been active in development work and research in the field of emulsion paints and paint vehicles, entered into a contract with defendant, a well-known manufacturer of paint vehicles, on January 24, 1956. This contract was the result of certain demonstrations by Hirsch at defendant's Newark, N. J. laboratory during the preceding month which indicated possible commercial merit to an emulsion process on which Hirsch was working. The agreement provided that plaintiff would be hired for a month for $600 as a consultant to prepare his paint vehicles at the Newark laboratory. At the end of this period defendant, after evaluating the results could either discontinue the project or continue to employ plaintiff for two additional months at the same $600 monthly salary, during which time Hirsch would disclose his "formulae and know-how." Upon expiration of this period, defendant could either terminate the relationship, agreeing not to make use of any disclosures previously unknown to it, or it could, if it believed the process to have commercial value, engage Hirsch for a three-year period at $600 per month and commercially promote the product. The one-month period was subsequently extended for a month and defendant later proposed a further extension of the trial period, which Hirsch refused. The relationship was thereupon terminated on May 24, 1956.
Hirsch then initiated an action on September 17, 1956 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He at that time and all times subsequently has acted for himself and, as often occurs in such situations, the complaint is a verbose catalogue of grievances. The gravamen of the complaint, however, is that the defendant appropriated and exploited his process without compensating him for it. Plaintiff also asserted, as more clearly appears in his correspondence with the company, that the defendant was obligated by contract to retain him for three years if the process had possible commercial value, irrespective of use by defendant. This action terminated in a general release signed by Hirsch on November 14, 1956, for which he received $1,800.
The complaint which resulted in the adverse judgment from which Hirsch now appeals was filed on August 5, 1957. In it he seeks to set aside the release and recover both profits arising from alleged use of his process and a $21,600 consulting fee under the contract.
If plaintiff is to maintain his second action, which is similar to his first, he must avoid the effects of the release he granted. Both parties agree that it may be avoided for fraudulent representations made by the defendant and relied on by the plaintiff in granting the release. The lower court held, however, that there was "no claim as to a present, false statement of an existing state of mind or intention of the defendant" because it believed the complaint merely alleged that the defendant represented at the time the release was signed that the process was not useful to it though it later commercially promoted the emulsion. Since such a change of mind is not fraudulent, the court entered judgment for the defendant.
We think the district court misapprehended plaintiff's allegations and the statements in his affidavits. Plaintiff alleges...
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