Rich v. Chadwick, 148-77
| Citation | 385 A.2d 677,136 Vt. 122 |
| Decision Date | 04 April 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 148-77,148-77 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Vermont |
| Parties | David A. RICH v. Denis N. CHADWICK and Industrial Tool Specialist, Inc. |
Parker & Lamb, Ltd., Springfield, for plaintiff.
Kiel & Freeman, Springfield, for defendants.
Before BARNEY, C. J., and DALEY, LARROW, BILLINGS and HILL, JJ.
Plaintiff Rich in his action below sought varied relief from a claimed breach of a contract with defendant Chadwick and a corporation formed by him, Industrial Tool Specialist, Inc. Plaintiff claimed wrongful discharge, failure to pay for services rendered, failure to honor a stock purchase option, and other incidental breaches. An extensive recital of the facts involved can serve no useful purpose, because the procedural morass created by the trial court, culminating in an order dismissing the complaint, requires remand for trial.
The case was set for jury trial pursuant to defendants' jury demand. No waiver of that demand appears to have been attempted. Indeed, such a demand, once made, cannot be withdrawn without the consent of the parties. V.R.C.P. 38(d). A jury was in fact drawn, although trial before it does not appear to have even been commenced. Instead, more than two weeks after the jury drawing, the court commenced a hearing "for construction of the terms and conditions" contained in the original written agreement between the parties. There appears to have been no pending motion before the court, defendants' motion for summary judgment having been denied by an earlier ruling. Following an extensive hearing, the presiding judge entered a purported order, signed by neither of the assistant judges, in which he incorporated findings, not only as to the original contract, but as to plaintiff's subsequent employment by the defendants, sales made by him, compensation paid him, the nature of his performance, his failure to request stock issuance, the making of a subsequent agreement, and intervening payments to defendant Chadwick and other stockholders. He concluded that the stock purchase option existed only during employment, that it had not been exercised during that time, that the corporation was not bound by the pre-incorporation contract, and that plaintiff therefore was discharged properly. The order dismissed the complaint.
We do not examine the legal issues raised by the litigation, because in our judgment they still await proper disposition by the trial court. Despite the purported limited scope of...
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Walsh v. Cluba
...of the contract, ratify the contract and thus be bound by it, even without formal or documented action. See Rich v. Chadwick, 136 Vt. 122, 124, 385 A.2d 677, 678 (1978) (citing Koerber v. Middlesex Coll., 128 Vt. 11, 258 A.2d 572 (1969), as “authority for the proposition that a subsequently......
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Rich v. Chadwick, 230-79
...of the defendant corporation by act of its president, Chadwick. The matter was before this Court previously, as reported in 136 Vt. 122, 385 A.2d 677 (1978). Unhappily, the misfortunes of the case on first hearing were not substantially lessened on retrial. Although the nature of the proble......