E. S. Hall v. E. R. Fletcher

• Decision Date: 07 October 1924
• Parties: E. S. HALL v. E. R. FLETCHER
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

130 A. 685

99 Vt. 199

E. S. HALL v. E. R. FLETCHER

Supreme Court of Vermont

October 7, 1924

October Term, 1924.

Opinion filed October 7, 1925.

ACTION OF CONTRACT. Plea, general issue. Trial by jury at the June Term, 1922, Orange County, Willcox, J., presiding. Verdict directed for defendant, and judgment thereon. The plaintiff excepted. The opinion states the case.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Raymond Trainor and Paul Gilioli for the plaintiff.

J Ward Carver and Hale K. Darling for the defendant.

Present WATSON, C. J., POWERS, TAYLOR, SLACK, and BUTLER, JJ.

OPINION

BUTLER

The plaintiff seeks to recover of the defendant the value of services, board and room, care and nursing of the defendant's wife from June 12, 1918, to April 1, 1921. The case was tried by jury. At the close of all the evidence on his motion, a verdict was directed and judgment rendered for the defendant. The plaintiff excepted.

The nine grounds of defendant's motion may be summarized and were in substance: (1) That there was no evidence of an express contract between the plaintiff and defendant to pay for the care and support furnished, and no implied contract could be found because the relation between the plaintiff and the defendant's wife was such as to rebut any presumption that the plaintiff expected to receive pay and the defendant expected to pay therefor. (2) That there was no evidence from which the jury could compute and assess the value of the service, support, and other items. (3) That there was no evidence that the money sent to the wife by defendant did not constitute a full and adequate allowance for her comfortable support.

The plaintiff's evidence tended to show that the defendant and Blanche Hall, the plaintiff's daughter, then between forty and fifty years of age, were married some time in 1910 and went to Hardwick to reside. The defendant was and had been for many years engaged in a granite business in Hardwick, and operated a quarry at Woodbury. He had a home in Hardwick, occupied by himself and his wife from the time of their marriage until June 12, 1918, when the defendant brought his wife in an automobile to the plaintiff's house in East Randolph and left her there. He made a very short stop, not long enough to go into the house put her valise on the portico, and departed immediately, and never came to see his wife after that. When he brought her to the plaintiff's house, she was sick and in need of care nursing, and medical attention, "very bad off," and extremely nervous. She remained at her father's house, except for a short time while in the hospital, until her death in April, 1921. That defendant knew that she was in need of care out of the ordinary and was not a mere visitor at her father's house was apparent. Plaintiff took her to Hardwick in the fall of 1918, when he told the defendant that "Mrs. Fletcher would like to come up and live with him," to which the defendant replied that "He thought it wouldn't be a good place for her;" that he told the defendant that "when folks got married they were supposed to have a home."

In March, 1919, her sister, who was assisting the plaintiff at his house, wrote the defendant and told him "that she had a goiter that had caused her to bloat and caused her bad heart, that they couldn't operate on her throat to remove the goiter on account of the fluid in her system, it wouldn't be safe, that her mother was caring for her but was getting weaker all the time and could not continue it and that he would have to get a nurse." In October, 1920, she wrote again that Mrs. Fletcher was worse and that her mother was very much worse and could not take care of her any longer, asking what he would do about it. Defendant made no other arrangements for her care, nor did he reply to these letters or come to see her. That she was living apart from her husband without her fault, was conceded.

No express contract to pay his wife's support is claimed to have existed between the plaintiff and defendant, and, this being so, the defendant contends that since the relation between the plaintiff and the defendant's wife was that of parent and child, no recovery can be had, and relies upon Sawyer v. Hebard's Estate, 58 Vt. 375, 376, 3 A. 529; Danyew v. Powers' Estate, 84 Vt. 255, 78 A. 785; Peters v. Poro's Estate, 96 Vt. 95, 117 A. 244, 25 A. L. R. 615.

But the rule recognized in the cases cited does not go to that extent. Nor does the mere fact of the relationship preclude recovery upon a contract implied in fact or rebut any presumption that may arise from the circumstances of the particular case. The relationship is but a circumstance to be considered by the jury with the other circumstances of the case, and may or may not rebut the ordinary presumption that valuable services are to be paid for when considered in connection therewith. Peters v. Poro's Estate, supra; Briggs v. Briggs' Estate, 46 Vt. 571.

All that plaintiff is required to do under this rule is to show that the services were performed with the mutual understanding and expectation that they were to be paid for by defendant. The case is for the jury if the service was performed under circumstances that reasonably justified a mutual expectation and understanding by the parties that there was to be pecuniary compensation. Drown's Guardian v. Chesley's Estate, 92 Vt. 19, 102 A. 102, L.R.A. 1918A, 1056; Peters v. Poro's Estate, supra; Andrus v. Foster, 17 Vt. 556; Parkhurst v. Krellinger, 69 Vt. 375, 38 A. 67.

That the daughter was of mature age, married to ...