Phipps v. Mahon
| Decision Date | 02 April 1886 |
| Parties | PHIPPS v. MAHON and another. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
H.E. Fales, for plaintiff.
L.H Wakefield and Curtis Abbott, for defendants.
The plaintiff relied upon the facts that he had rendered certain valuable service for the defendant at his request, and that such service was reasonably worth the sum of $200, as establishing a contract by the defendant to pay this sum. Such is the legal interpretation of his declaration, which in form, was an allegation that defendant owed him a certain sum according to an account annexed. The plaintiff did not claim that any fixed price had been agreed upon, although had this been the case, such price might be recovered under a similar count. Lowe v. Pimental, 115 Mass. 44. By denying the allegation of the plaintiff's declaration the defendant put in issue, not only the facts stated, but the existence of the contract, which was the legal inference therefrom, if no other facts appeared; which proof of these facts, with the aid of the legal inference to be deduced therefrom, establishes a prima facie case as far as proof of a contract is required. It does not change the burden of proof in the case.
The defendant relied upon an alleged agreement between himself and the plaintiff, by which the latter was to do the work sued for, under a special contract, for a sum certain, which the plaintiff had already received. It was for the defendant to offer some evidence to rebut the inference to be deduced from the facts proved by the plaintiff. He did not seek to avoid the contract alleged by plaintiff, or the effect of it but to disprove its existence. While in form his evidence was affirmative, the use he sought to make of it was strictly negative, and was for the purpose only of rebutting the plaintiff's proposition as deduced from the evidence offered by him. The burden was still upon the plaintiff to prove the contract alleged by him, upon all the evidence in the case. If we suppose this evidence to be equally balanced, he could not recover, as he has failed to prove that which is essential. In an action for labor and services rendered, where the plaintiff seeks to recover what they are reasonably worth, he cannot do so if the whole evidence leaves it in doubt whether they were not gratuitously rendered. The defendant, by asserting that they were so rendered, and offering to prove it by legal evidence to that effect, meets the prima facie case of the plaintiff, and the issue is then to be...
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