Regester v. Medcalf
| Decision Date | 17 December 1889 |
| Citation | 18 A. 966,71 Md. 528 |
| Parties | REGESTER ET AL. v. MEDCALF. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from superior court of Baltimore city.
Argued before ALVEY, C, J., and MILLER,
D Eldridge Monroe and C. Dodd McFarland, for appellants.
John P. Poe and Joseph C. France, for appellee.
The appellants, together with Edwin L. Tunis and Alfred E. Hatch, appear by the record to have agreed among themselves to organize a bank under the acts of congress. Alfred E. Hatch was to be vice-president, and he, it is stated in evidence, was intrusted with the duty of making the preliminary arrangements for carrying out their plan. He entered into treaty with the appellee to become cashier of the bank proposed to be formed. The appellee was then, and had been for some time previously, book-keeper in the Manufacturers' National Bank of Baltimore, and avers in his narr. that he was induced to resign that position, and accept the office of cashier in the new bank of appellants at a fixed salary for a year. Being told his services were immediately required, he was induced to resign at once, and enter upon the discharge of such duties as were required of him in defendants' employ. This he avers he did, and, after serving them for less than a month, the organization was abandoned, and the appellee was discharged. He alleges the contract was broken, and sues for a year's salary, which he contends he was entitled to. The defendants have pleaded that they never were indebted as alleged, and that they never promised as alleged. The defendants contended that they never personally employed the plaintiff, or authorized any one to employ him; and that, although he may have been elected cashier at a meeting of so-called "directors," it was a conditional employment, dependent entirely upon a final and effective organization of the bank, which was ultimately abandoned, and thus worked the rightful discharge of the appellee. Alfred E. Hatch does not seem to have been sued, but there is no plea in abatement, and no question arises on that account. Edwin L. Tunis, one of the defendants below, has not appealed. Why, can only be surmised. The other defendants below have appealed. The questions for review arise wholly upon the rejection, by the superior court of Baltimore city, of the second, fourth, and fifth prayers of the appellants.
The second prayer of the appellants asked the court to say that if the appellants were found to have agreed with the appellee to employ him for a year as cashier, when the bank was organized, at $1,200 a year, and that while in their service he made a false oath that the capital stock had all been paid in, when in fact it had not been paid in, and it should be further found that afterwards the organization was abandoned and that the plaintiff (appellee) was dismissed from their service, then the dismissal was justifiable, and he was not entitled to recover. The appellee contends that this prayer was properly rejected for want of evidence to support it, and the appellants insist that, as the record does not show that objection to have been made in the court below, it cannot be raised here. The fourth rule of this court, which is invoked in support of this last contention, relates expressly, and only, to granted prayers. This being a rejected player, we...
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