Sheets v. Hill Bros. Distributors, Inc.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1964
• Docket Number: No. 50030,No. 2,50030,2
• Citation: 379 S.W.2d 514
• Parties: Alpha Editha SHEETS, Appellant, v. HILL BROTHERS DISTRIBUTORS, INC., and The 5940 Shoe Company, Inc., Respondents
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 514

379 S.W.2d 514

Alpha Editha SHEETS, Appellant, v. HILL BROTHERS DISTRIBUTORS, INC., and The 5940 Shoe Company Inc., Respondents.

No. 50030.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

June 8, 1964.

Randolph & Randolph, Robert B. Randolph, St. Joseph, for appellant.

Arnold N. Shanberg, Rope, Shanberg & Rope, Kansas City, for respondents.

STOCKARD, Commissioner.

Plaintiff has appealed from the judgment of the trial court directing a verdict for defendants at the close of plaintiff's evidence in her suit for damages in the amount of $93,975.00 for alleged breach of an oral contract of employment.

The following facts and circumstances reasonably could be found by a jury to exist from a consideration, in the light most favorable to her, of plaintiff's evidence. On January 2, 1958, while employed by The 5940 Shoe Co., Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Hill Brothers Distributors, Inc., at its store in St. Joseph, Missouri, plaintiff fell from a chair while attempting to obtain a pair of shoes from a rack, and she sustained an injury which admittedly arose out of and in the course of her employment. A report of injury was filed by her employer with the Division of Workmen's Compensation. The Surety National Insurance Company, her employer's compensation insurance carrier, paid plaintiff's medical bills in the amount of $493.20 and paid $142.80 compensation to her 'for a healing period of 4 2/7 weeks.' Surety National Insurance Company and plaintiff then entered into a lump sum settlement agreement, approved by a referee of the Division of Workmen's Compensation, which recited, among other things, the fact of the injury arising out of and in the course of employment, that 'both the employer and employee were operating under and subject to the provisions of the Missouri Workmen's Compensation Law,' that 'all liability of said employer was fully insured by Surety National Insurance Company,' the amount of payments previously made to plaintiff, and that there existed 'a dispute between the employer and the employee as to the nature and extent of disability the employee has suffered as result of said accident.' It was then recited that it was agreed that the parties thereto would enter into a compromise lump sum settlement pursuant to Section 287.390 RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S., for the additional payment to plaintiff of $1,716.00. The agreement also recited that plaintiff 'states that she has read the foregoing compromise lump sum agreement and she understands it and urges that approval be made by the Division of Workmen's Compensation,' and that she understands that by agreeing to the settlement 'she is forever closing out this claim under the Missouri Workmen's Compensation Law.' Before agreeing to the lump sum settlement plaintiff talked to Niel Hill and Clifford Hill (not identified in the evidence but referred to in plaintiff's brief as 'her employers') and according to plaintiff, Niel Hill told her, 'You know what your hospital bills have been to date, * * * if you want to make the settlement they have offered you, you will have a lifetime job with us.' According to plaintiff, Clifford Hill told her, 'you know we will always take care of you. You will have a lifetime job with us.' In answer to the question, 'what did Hill Brothers agree to do for you?' she replied: 'Hill Brothers told me I would have a lifetime job with them at the St. Joseph Store,' and 'they didn't put any stipulation on it whatever' as to whether she was to be able to do the work, and 'they didn't say satisfactory or unsatisfactory.' Plaintiff further testified that in return for the promise of lifetime employment she agreed 'to not file a suit against them; to make a settlement for $1,716.00. * * * I was to take their offer and to make a settlement and not bring suit against them and I would have a lifetime job.' Plaintiff returned to her employment at the shoe store and continued to work until September 14, 1961, when her employment was terminated. According to plaintiff, the 'supervisor' told her that he had talked to Mr. Hill and 'he said to fire you.'

In her petition plaintiff alleged that the 'defendants, or their liability insurer offered plaintiff approximately $1,700.00 as a compromise settlement for the injury she received in January 1958,' and that 'in consideration of plaintiff accepting the $1,700.00, and not bringing suit against defendants on account of her said injury, defendants agreed to give plaintiff steady employment during the period of her natural life in their Hill Brothers Shoe Store in St. Joseph, Missouri.' She further alleged that she 'performed her part of the agreement' but that defendants had violated the agreement by discharging her. The trial court directed a verdict for defendants and stated that because of the provisions of Section 287.390 RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S., the agreement 'is not valid and therefore cannot be enforced.'

Plaintiff cites and relies on only two cases: Harrington v. Kansas City Cable Railway Company, 60 Mo.App. 223 (1894), and McDaniel v. United Railways Company of St. Louis, 165 Mo.App. 678, 148 S.W. 464 (1912). Both of these cases, decided before the enactment of the Workmen's Compensation Law, may be considered as authority that the oral agreement for lifetime employment was valid and enforceable, and without so ruling or implying, we shall for the purpose of this opinion assume that in the absence of the Workmen's Compensation Law an agreement of the nature here alleged would, if established by competent evidence, be valid and enforceable. We shall also assume that the persons witht whom the alleged contract was entered into on behalf of the defendants had authority to so bind the corporate defendants.

It is admitted, and plaintiff's evidence affirmatively established, that plaintiff and her employer were subject to the Missouri Workmen's Compensation Law. In such event the rights and remedies provided therein exclude all rights and remedies of plaintiff against defendant that she might have had at common law. Section 287.120(2) RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S. As stated in Marie v. Standard Steel Works, Mo., 319 S.W.2d 871, 875, 'The compensation act, * * * is not supplemental or declaratory of any existing rule, right or remedy, but creates an entirely new right or remedy and where the employer and employee have elected to accept the provisions of the act [or are subject thereto by operation of law] such new right or remedy is wholly substitutional in character and supplants all other rights and remedies, at common law or otherwise.' See also Bunner v. Patti, 343 Mo. 274, 121 S.W.2d 153; Montgomery v. Mine La Motte Corporation, Mo., 304 S.W.2d 885, 888; McDaniel v. Kerr, 364 Mo. 1, 285 S.W.2d 629. Therefore, when on January 2, 1958, plaintiff sustained an injury arising out of and in the course of her employment, all remedies, claims or rights accruing to her and against her employer for compensation or damages arising by reason of such injury were those provided for in the Workmen's Compensation Law to the exclusion of any common law or contractual right.

Section 287.390 RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S. (in effect at the time the lump sum settlement agreement was entered into and approved by the referee of the Division of Workmen's Compensation) provided that 'Nothing in this chapter [the Workmen's Compensation Law] shall be construed as preventing the parties to claims hereunder from entering into voluntary agreements in settlement thereof, but no agreement by an employee or his dependents to waive his rights under this chapter shall be valid, nor shall any agreement of settlement or compromise of any dispute or claim for compensation under this chapter be valid until approved by the commission, * * *.' (Italics added). Plaintiff has alleged, and her evidence establishes, that the agreement in settlement of her claim for compensation included the promise of the payment to her of a certain sum of money and the promise of lifetime employment, and her evidence is to the effect that she accepted the sum offered because of the promise of lifetime...