Triangle Waist Co. v. Todd
| Decision Date | 26 February 1918 |
| Citation | 119 N.E. 85,223 N.Y. 27 |
| Parties | TRIANGLE WAIST CO., Inc., v. TODD. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
Action by the Triangle Waist Company, Incorporated, against Beatrice Todd. A judgment for plaintiff was reversed by the Appellate Division, which substituted a judgment for nominal damages (168 App. Div. 693,154 N. Y. Supp. 542), and plaintiff appeals. Reversed, and new trial granted.
Max D. Steuer, of New York City, for appellant.
I. Gainsburg, of New York City, for respondent.
[1] The action is one by employer against employe. The plaintiff is a manufacturer of waists. The defendant is a designer. There is evidence that on July 5, 1913, she agreed to serve the plaintiff for one year at a salary of $45 a week. In August, 1913, she abandoned her contract without warning. She says she believed herself worth more than she had received. She entered the service of a rival company, which agreed to pay her $100 a week and an additional $500 at the end of the year. This latter contract was in writing. It was accompanied by a bond indemnifying the defendant against damage by reason of any breach of her oral contract with the plaintiff. At once the plaintiff attempted to win her back. An offer was made to increase her salary to $100 a week. She accepted the offer and agreed to return. On August 26, 1913, the new agreement was put in writing and signed. It gave the plaintiff an option to renew the employment for a second year. This was a right which the first agreement did not give; and hence there was no lack of consideration for the larger rate of payment. The defendant served a day, and then again deserted. She demanded an additional payment of $1,000 as the price of performance. This the plaintiff was willing to concede. What the plaintiff would not concede was a bond indemnifying the defendant against claims for damages by others and undertaking to continue the payment of her salary, even in the event of an injunction restraining her from working. The defendant refused to return, and the plaintiff sued her.
Two causes of action were submitted to the jury. One was for the breach of the oral contract of July 5, 1913; the other, for the breach of the written contract of August 26th. The verdict was for $3,420. The Appellate Division held that there could be no recovery for the breach of the oral contract, because it had been rescinded by consent, and a new contract had been substituted; there could be no recovery in excess of nominal damages for the breach of the new contract, because no damages had been proved. The judgment was therefore reversed, and one for nominal damages was directed in its place.
[2] We agree with the Appellate Division that the breach of the oral contract does not sustain the verdict. For a sufficient consideration, that contract was rescinded, and a new one substituted. But we do not agree that for the breach of the new contract, the award of damages must be nominal. The defendant was evidently a designer of more than usual skill. This is sufficiently attested by the eager competition for her services. The record does not tell us the usual payment for designers of equal skill. It does tell us, however, the payments made to this particular designer. She was able to earn from others $500 a year more than she was to receive from the plaintiff. Nor is that all. Without color of right, she demanded an extra $1,000 from the plaintiff as the price of performance, and the plaintiff would have yielded to the exaction if it had not been coupled with a demand for a bond of indemnity. In all those circumstances, there is some evidence of the value of her services, and hence, of the cost of replacement, if they could be replaced at all. The plaintiff might have proved by experts the sum that such services ought to command in...
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