Preston v. American Linen Co.

• Decision Date: 10 January 1876
• Parties: John Preston v. American Linen Company
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

119 Mass. 400

John Preston v. American Linen Company

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

January 10, 1876

Argued October 29, 1875 [Syllabus Material]

Bristol. Contract upon an account annexed to recover for services as a weaver, while in the employ of the defendant corporation, from July 6, to August 1, 1874. The answer contained a general denial, set forth, in substance, the notice which appears below, and alleged that if the plaintiff worked for the defendant he left without giving the notice thereby required, and that the money claimed was thereby forfeited.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Wilkinson, J., it appeared in evidence that the defendant corporation, which carried on the business of manufacturing cotton cloth, paid the operatives on the third Thursday of each month; that the pay roll was made out up to and including the second Saturday of each month previous to the pay day, so that there would be several days' labor, being that interval, which would remain unpaid on each pay day until the following pay day that the pay of each operative was put in a small sealed envelope, plainly to be seen, the following words were printed: "Particular notice. All persons intending to leave are required to give two weeks' notice of such intention to the overseers of their respective rooms; and no person will be considered honorably discharged or entitled to wages then due unless this regulation is complied with. American Linen Company. Walter Paine, 3d, treasurer. Fall River, 1870."

The plaintiff had been in the defendant's employ about fourteen months, when he left in August, 1874, and had regularly received his pay in an envelope as described. The plaintiff, on cross-examination, testified that he had known the rule or regulation in question about all the time he was in the defendant's employ; that he could not tell when his attention was first directed to the printed matter on the back of the envelope; that it might have been soon after he went to work, or might have been later that he read it, but did not pay any particular attention to it; that he could read and write, and understood that he was to give and work a two weeks' notice before he left; that he never expressed any dissent from the rule or regulation in question to any officer or agent of the defendant, and never said or did anything from which it could infer that he did not agree to or assent to said rule, or did not understand the same; that on the first Saturday in August, he went to the second hand of the room where he was working and told him he wished to leave at the close of that day's work, and the second hand told him that if he wanted to leave he must work his notice; that he went in the afternoon again, shortly before the mill stopped, and told the second hand that he wished to leave at the close of that day, and the second hand made the same reply as in the morning; that on both occasions he knew what was meant when told that he must work his notice, and that he could not then get his pay if he left; that he left the defendant's employ at the close of that day's work, and did not return to work his notice, or offer at any time so to do, although he was able to do so, and under no disability. On the following pay day he went to the mill for his pay, and the overseer testified that he then told him that he could not get his pay unless he worked his notice and the plaintiff made no reply thereto. This was denied by the plaintiff.

The plaintiff testified that he understood the printed notice to mean, that if he left without giving and working his two weeks' notice he would not be entitled to his pay on that day, but would be on the following pay day, or two weeks after he left; that if he worked two weeks after notice he would be entitled to his pay on the day of his leaving, but that he did not understand it to mean that he would forfeit his wages. The treasurer of the defendant corporation testified, on cross-examination, that he never knew or heard before of such a construction; he also stated that the rule had been in force about four years, and that there were about one thousand hands employed in the mill. There was no evidence, and it was not contended by the defendant, that the plaintiff's attention was called to this rule, when he entered its employ, by any of its agents. The above was substantially all the testimony in the case.

The defendant contended that upon these facts it had a right to infer that the plaintiff had knowledge of and understood the rule and assented thereto, so that it was a contract binding upon him, and that he forfeited...