Kryzminski v. Callahan

• Decision Date: 02 January 1913
• Citation: 100 N.E. 335,213 Mass. 207
• Parties: KRYZMINSKI v. CALLAHAN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

213 Mass. 207

100 N.E. 335

KRYZMINSKI v. CALLAHAN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

January 2, 1913

COUNSEL

T. A. McDonnell, of Chicopee, for plaintiff.

M. L Welcker, of Holyoke, for defendant.

OPINION

MORTON J.

This is an action of contract to recover damages for the breach of a written agreement dated September 19, 1910, and signed by one Lahey as the agent of the defendant, whereby the defendant agrees to sell and the plaintiff to purchase on the terms therein specified a certain parcel of land with the buildings thereon in the city of Chicopee. There was a verdict for the plaintiff and the case is here on exceptions by the defendant to the refusal of the presiding justice to give certain rulings that were requested and to a portion of the charge.

The agreement relied on was dated and executed on Monday. But there was evidence tending to show that there were negotiations between the parties in regard to a sale and purchase on Sunday and that Lahey was constituted the defendant's agent on that day and authorized by him to represent and act for him in the execution of a binding agreement on Monday. And the principal question in the case relates to the refusal of the presiding justice to instruct the jury as requested in substance and effect by the defendant that if Lahey's authority to sign the agreement on Monday was given to him by Callahan on Sunday the creation of such agency on Sunday constituted the transaction of secular business on the Lord's Day and was void.

The Sunday law was not pleaded by the defendant. Nor, if that is material, was the statute of frauds. But the defendant expressly denied that Lahey was his agent for the purpose of signing the written agreement.

The presiding justice instructed the jury amongst other things that if the contract was made on Sunday it was void and could not be ratified, but that if the parties 'afterwards met in their minds, after Sunday, and either by expression or by conduct traded, the fact that they had had some talk on Sunday, and the fact that the things they were proposing to do by way of conditions of contract afterwards appeared in the memorandum, doesn't vitiate the contract, because that was made, if you should so find, upon a secular or week day.' He further instructed them: 'If you find that the contract took place on a week day it was a good contract. If you should find that it took place on a Sunday it is a void contract. And in that view of the law it becomes to my mind immaterial, in view of the defendant's attitude in not setting up this statute [meaning the Statute of Frauds] whether or...