Siverts v. Dahoot

• Decision Date: 28 October 1921
• Docket Number: No. 22339.,22339.
• Citation: 184 N.W. 839,150 Minn. 179
• Parties: SIVERTS v. DAHOOT.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

150 Minn. 179

184 N.W. 839

SIVERTS

v.DAHOOT.

No. 22339.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Oct. 28, 1921.

Appeal from District Court, Morrison County; J. A. Roeser, Judge.

Action by S. A. Siverts against Eunice Dahoot. Verdict for defendant, plaintiff's motion for judgment or a new trial denied, and he appeals. Order reversed in so far as it denied a new trial, and new trial granted.

Syllabus by the Court

Plaintiff was not entitled to judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

It was error to submit the reasonable value of services rendered, for there was no evidence as to such value, and the only proof in respect to the services was that they were rendered under an express contract at a stipulated price.

A verdict, based upon an express contract, for about one-third of the amount which should have been awarded if the contract had existence, must be regarded as perverse, and should not be allowed to stand, following Alden v. Sacramento S. Fruit Co., 137 Minn. 161, 163 N. W. 133. Wm. H. Cherry, of Morris, and E. A. Kling, of Little Falls, for appellant.

D. M. Cameron, of Little Falls, for respondent.

HOLT, J.

Plaintiff sued upon 11 promissory notes, executed by defendant, aggregating $1,900 and interest. Defendant answered that the notes were executed without consideration and for the sole accommodation of plaintiff, and set up as a counterclaim that he had worked for plaintiff during the years 1912 to and including 1918 at the agreed price and reasonable value of $1,200 for each year, and for the sum of $100 during 1919, and there was due and unpaid $3,650 and interest. A verdict for $1,300 was rendered in favor of defendant. Plaintiff's motion for judgment or a new trial was denied, and he appeals.

[1] Defendant, a native of Kurdistan, Turkey, came to this country in his youth, and finally settled down in Morris, Minn., about 1900. Soon thereafter he became the owner of a team, and engaged in draying until 1908 or 1909, when he entered the ice business, conducting it under the name of City Ice Company. He bought a lot for an icehouse, put up and retailed ice. He was wholly illiterate, and procured plaintiff, a banker at Morris, to keep whatever books were necessary in the business. Plaintiff's bank also loaned him the money he needed. This admittedly kept on until 1912, and, so far as any one else knew, until the fall of 1919, when a controversy arose between the parties. In the answer and upon the trial defendant asserted that in January, 1912, he sold the ice business to plaintiff, and was then hired by plaintiff to run it for him, and to do this in defendant's name, precisely as theretofore, his wages to be $100 per month; that under this arrangement defendant worked for plaintiff until the fall of 1917, when he bought an ice business in Little Falls, and that from that time on he was to receive $100 a year for letting plaintiff carry on the ice business ostensibly as that of defendant. We shall not discuss the remarkable story of defendant as to the ownership of the ice business at Morris from January, 1912, to the fall of 1919, for we are of opinion that, under the testimony, it became a jury question, and hence there was no error in denying the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

[2] We, however, deem the verdict perverse and not justified by the evidence. That it is such is due, in part perhaps, to an error in the charge. The counterclaim averred the wages to be of the agreed price and reasonable value of $100 per month. There was no evidence whatever of the value of the services. Indeed, there...