Kolodney v. Kolodney Bros., Inc.

• Decision Date: 24 April 1959
• Docket Number: No. 110478,110478
• Citation: 21 Conn.Supp. 308,154 A.2d 531
• Court: Connecticut Superior Court
• Parties: Esther KOLODNEY v. KOLODNEY BROTHERS, INC.

Page 531

154 A.2d 531

21 Conn.Supp. 308

Esther KOLODNEY v. KOLODNEY BROTHERS, INC.

No. 110478.

Superior Court of Connecticut, Hartford County.

April 24, 1959.

Ralph C. Dixon, Hartford, with whom was Abraham Silver, New Britain, for plaintiff.

Joseph Adinolfi, Jr., Hartford, for defendant.

PHILLIPS, Judge.

This was a companion suit with Kolodney v. Kolodney Bros., Inc., 154 A.2d 540, and Kolodney v. Kolodney, 154 A.2d 533, and the three suits were tried together. It was agreed by counsel that the evidence in each of these suits should be considered by the court in the other suits so far as relevant and admissible, and particularly that evidence affecting the credibility of witnesses in any one suit could be considered by the court in weighing the credibility of those same witnesses in the other suits. The three memorandums of decision should be read together.

This action is based upon an alleged oral contract between the plaintiff and the defendant corporation, acting through its president, Samuel Kolodney, to pay the plaintiff a pension of $100 per week for the rest of her life upon the death of her husband, Samuel Kolodney. The plaintiff's case rests almost entirely upon conversations which she testified that she had with her deceased husband as president of the defendant corporation. These conversations were admitted into evidence by the court as verbal acts which, if believed, might constitute a contract. 6 Wigmore, Evidence (3d Ed.) § 1770.

The plaintiff worked for Kolodney Brothers, or Kolodney Brothers Hardware Company, from 1927 to January, 1940, at a salary of $25 per week. On January 20, 1940, her marriage to Samuel Kolodney, which had taken place secretly in 1933, was announced. Thereafter she worked for the company without salary. The first of the alleged conversations occurred at the store on Sunday, June 28, 1949. The plaintiff protested to her husband of the volume of work she was doing and stated that she was quitting. Her testimony was that he then said, 'Now look, as long as I am here you have to work, and if anything happens to me, you don't have to worry. You will continue with my salary.' In answer to further questioning by her counsel, she testified that he said, 'You will continue with my salary as long as you live.' She testified to another conversation with her husband in the presence of Ralph Kolodney in July, 1950, to the same effect. Ralph Kolodney denied that the events and the conversations of June 28, 1949, and July, 1950, took place. Abraham denied that Samuel ever had any conversation with him about such a contract.

Immediately after Samuel's death on October 9, 1953, the plaintiff was paid $100 a week, the amount which Samuel had been receiving. These payments were continued until March 1, 1957, at which time, because of an altercation between the plaintiff and the two surviving Kolodney brothers, they were stopped. About a week after Samuel's death, the plaintiff testified, she was assured by Ralph, during a call made by Ralph and Abraham and their wives, that the plaintiff did not have to worry, that she would always continue to get $100 a week. A different version was placed upon this interview by the defendant's witnesses.

The issue is thus largely to be resolved by the credibility of the witnesses, bearing in mind the rules concerning burden of proof. The credibility and accuracy of the plaintiff's testimony are open to question for the reasons stated in the memorandum of decision in Kolodney v. Kolodney, Conn.Super., 154 A.2d 533, third count, to which...