179 Iowa 702 | Iowa | 1917
The. plaintiff alleges that the Clinton Bridge Works and the Clinton Bridge & Iron Works are different names for one and the same corporation; that, on December 24, 1910, he made an oral contract with said cor
The defendant admits that plaintiff was employed in its service and that it paid him $300 per month during the years 1912 and 1913, and denies all other allegations of the petition. It further pleads as an affirmative defense that, on November 3, 1913, it made and delivered to plaintiff its check for $600 in full payment for all services rendered by him to December 1, 1913, which payment he then and there received and accepted in full for his claims and demands on that account. By way of amendment, defendant further pleads that, during the year 1912, and for two months in the year 1913, plaintiff was sick and .unable to render any service under his contract, and that defendant paid him in full for all services actually rendered. It further alleges that plaintiff did not give all his time to its service, but, without defendant’s consent, devoted much of his time to his own personal affairs.
We are satisfied that, to say the least, the evidence of performance on part of the plaintiff was sufficient to require the submission of that question to the jury.
“Clinton Bridge and Iron Works
To Dec. 1, 1913, Clinton, Iowa, Nov. 3, 1913.
In full. No. 5034
Pay to the order of C. E. Barr $600
Six hundred and no-100 dollars.
Payable if preferred at Corn Exchange Nat. Bank, Chicago,
Ill.
To Merchants National Bank, Clinton, Iowa.
Clinton Bridge and Iron Works,
By G. E. Wilson, Jr.”
According to his statement, plaintiff accepted the check without objection or protest, and without any suggestion that anything more was due him. It is conceded that the check was cashed by plaintiff.
According to plaintiff’s story, he told Wilson he was needing money, and Wilson gave him the check for $600, saying, “That is all we owe you.” This the plaintiff disputed, and told Wilson the company was owing the deferred payments of $2,400 per year. Wilson denied it, and denied that there was any agreement of that kind. Plaintiff testifies that in taking the check he did not notice the words “In full,” written thereon, that he noticed only the amount for Avhich the check was drawn — $600—and took it, protesting to Wilson that defendant was still owing him the deferred installments of $200 per month for the years 1912 and 1913. He also says that, Avhen this question of the
Defendant invokes the benefit of the rule that, where a person owing an unliquidated or undetermined claim tenders' a stated sum, to be accepted as full payment and satisfaction of the claim, and the creditor accepts such tender, both parties aré bound thereby, and the creditor cannot thereafter recover more, even though, had he refused the tender, he might have shown himself entitled to a larger amount. Within its expressed limitations, the soundness and propriety of the rule is not open to question. Ordinarily, where there is a promise to pay a stated sum of money for a given consideration, as, for example, for the price of property purchased, or compensation for service rendered, the claim or debt thus created .is not “unliquidated,” within the rule cited try this' appellant. In the casé’before us, there was concededly a contract for plaintiff’s services at-an agreed salary of at least $300 per month, and the jury has-found by its verdict that there was also a contract for an additional -sum, payable at the' end of the year. Appellant’ pleads and contends that it has paid plaintiff at the rate of $300 per month for all the time he was in their service under the last agreement between them. The plaintiff admits it. Both agree that under such oral contract plaintiff was to be paid $300 per month. The only material dis
The cases cited by appellant on this question deal in each instance with claims which are clearly unliquidated, and in none of them is found any precedent or authority
The trial court did not err in overruling defendant’s motion for a directed verdict. It may also be said that the court’s 11th and 12th instructions to the jury are as favorable, if not more favorable, to the defense than it was entitled to ask, under the rules of law to which we have referred, and they contain no error of which appellant can complain.
We discover no error in the record calling for a reversal, and the judgment below is therefore — Affirmed.