Nickerson v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll.

• Decision Date: 30 November 1937
• Citation: 298 Mass. 484,11 N.E.2d 444
• Parties: NICKERSON v. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

298 Mass. 484

11 N.E.2d 444

NICKERSON

v.PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Nov. 30, 1937.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Dillon, Judge.

Action of contract by Alonzo A. Nickerson against the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Directed verdict for defendants, and plaintiff brings exceptions.

Exceptions sustained.

M. Cook, of Boston, for plaintiff.

W. F. Farr, of Boston, for defendant.

LUMMUS, Justice.

G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 259, § 1, so far as material to this case, reads: ‘No action shall be brought: * * * Fifth, Upon an agreement that is not to be performed within one year from the making thereof; Unless the promise, contract or 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 by some person thereunto by him lawfully authorized.’ This is substantially the fifth clause of section 4 of the original English statute of frauds, 29 Car. II, c. 3.

The method of computing time under words like those of the statute, is firmly established in this Commonwealth. The ‘making’ of an agreement means, for the purpose of computing time, the day on which the agreement is made. The law reckons in days, not commonly in fractions of days; and an agreement made at six o'clock in the morning stands on the same footing with one made at eleven o'clock in the evening. The words ‘from the making’ of the agreement exclude the day on which it is made. The year begins with the following day, and ends at the close of the first anniversary of the day on which the agreement is made. Bemis v. Leonard, 118 Mass. 502, 19 Am.Rep. 470;Stevenson v. Donnelly, 221 Mass. 161, 164, 108 N.E. 926, Ann.Cas.1917E, 932;Laine v. Aarnio, 265 Mass. 374, 375, 164 N.E. 238;In re Marcellino, petitioner, 271 Mass. 323, 171 N.E. 81;Sweeney v. Morey & Co., Inc., 279 Mass. 495, 502, 503, 181 N.E. 782;Corey v. National Ben Franklin Fire Ins. Co., 284 Mass. 283, 286, 187 N.E. 542;In re Opinion of the Justices (Mass.) 196 N.E. 260;Burnet v. Willingham Loan & Trust Co., 282 U.S. 437, 51 S.Ct. 185, 75 L.Ed. 448.

The foregoing method of computing time has been applied to cases under the section of the statute of frauds in question. The result of such application is, that an agreement made on March 9 for employment for a term of one year is not within the statute if the term is to begin either on that day or the next day, March 10. Am. Law Inst. Restatement, Contracts, § 198, comment d, illustration 6; Dykema v. Story & Clark Piano Co., 220 Mich. 600, 190 N.W. 638, 27 A.L.R. 660, and note; Smith v. Gold Coast & Ashanti Explorers, Ltd. [1903] K. B. 285, affirmed [1903] K. B. 538; Williston, Contracts (Rev.Ed.) § 502. In this Commonwealth, there appears to be no decisive authority. In Sanborn v. Fireman's Ins. Co., 16 Gray 448, 455,77 Am.Dec. 419, the oral contract, made on April 12, 1856, was for insurance ‘for the term of one year from and including the 12th of April 1856,’ the term thus beginning on the very day of the making of the contract. All that was decided was that such a contract is not within the statute. In Raymond v. Phipps, 215 Mass. 559, 561, 562, 102 N.E. 905, 906, the defendant asked a ruling that ‘if the contract was for one year, and the year did not include the day on which it was made, the plaintiff could not recover in the absence of a written memorandum.’ The correctness of that proposition was not determined, for this court held merely that the requested ruling had been given in substance. In Heyer v. V. Barletta Co. (Mass.) 3 N.E.2d 266, there is indeed a statement which seems inconsistent with the method of computing time described in this opinion. But nothing turned on that statement. The plaintiff in that case sought damages for the breach of an oral contract to employ him as superintendent for one year....