Miles v. Columbia River Packers' Ass'n
| Decision Date | 04 August 1902 |
| Parties | MILES v. COLUMBIA RIVER PACKERS' ASS'N. |
| Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
Appeal from circuit court, Clatsop county; Thos. A. McBride, Judge.
Action by Thomas Miles against the Columbia River Packers' Association. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
This is an action to recover wages alleged to be due from the defendant. It is averred in the complaint that the defendant is a private corporation, for which plaintiff performed 90 days' labor, at its instance and request, between April 1 and August 10, 1900, in operating a seine, for which it promised and agreed to pay him on the latter date $2 per day or the sum of $180, no part of which has been paid. The complaint also states eight other causes of action on account of labor performed, the averments in respect thereto being substantially the same as in the first, except as to the amounts claimed by the persons hereinafter named, who assigned to plaintiff their respective demands, as follows James Hussey, $216; John Arquette, $181; George Stuart, $114 Cusick Arquette, $115; John Paul, $55; Sam Downie, $230 Robert Clunis, $228; and Sin Sam Wah, $130. The answer admits that the defendant is a corporation, but denies the other material allegations of the complaint. At the trial plaintiff introduced his testimony and rested, whereupon the court, on defendant's motion, gave a judgment of nonsuit, and plaintiff appeals.
Henry E. McGinn and George Noland, for appellant.
C.W. Fulton, for respondent.
MOORE C.J. (after stating the facts).
It is contended by plaintiff's counsel that the testimony shows that their client and his associates were employed by the defendant in pursuance of authority conferred by its general manager upon one Fritz Miller, who for some time had been operating a seine for it; that during the fishing season of 1900 the defendant did many things that led the plaintiff and those whose claims were assigned to him, to believe that the business in which they were engaged was being conducted for the corporation; that near the close of the season one of its agents, fearing an abandonment of the work, stimulated the hope and held out the inducement that the contracts made in its name by Miller would be carried out; that it paid orders issued by him to several laborers for their work in 1900; that during the preceding year it carried into effect all agreements made by Miller with the men engaged in operating the seine; that acts similar to those which constituted him its agent in 1899 continued him in that relation during the fishing season of the next year; and that the defendant's immediate and pecuniary interest in the contracts, in pursuance of which the labor was performed, renders its promise to pay therefor not an undertaking to answer for the debts of another, but furnishes an original obligation, which is enforceable by Miller's employés against it, and hence the court erred in granting the nonsuit. The testimony shows that during the fishing seasons of 1899 and 1900 Fritz Miller operated a seine at the head of Puget Island in the Columbia river, catching and shipping salmon to the defendant, which was engaged in canning them; that in 1899 Miller issued orders on the defendant for the wages of his men, which were promptly paid, but, the value of the fish received being less than the sums so paid, Miller gave the defendant a chattel mortgage on his fishing "gear" to secure the payment of the sums overdrawn, its general manager then assuring him, in referring to the operation of his seine the next year, that "we will see you through," and also saying "that they would back him"; that in 1900 Miller employed the plaintiff and others to assist him, agreeing to pay them $2 a day; and,...
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