8 S.D. 385 | S.D. | 1896
The plaintiff set out in his complaint a contract, from which it appears that the plaintiff agreed, for the consideration thereinafter named, “to well and faithfully till and farm, during the season of farming in the year 1894, in good and husbandlike manner and according to the usual course of husbandry, ” a certain tract of land described, and the plaintiff agree to sow and plant the said land in such crops as the defendant should direct. The plaintiff also agreed ‘ ‘to furnish, at his own cost and expense, all seed, and all proper and convenient tools, tearps, utensils, farm implements, and machinery, and to furnish and provide all proper assistance and hired help in and about the culivation and management of said farm.” Here follow numerous provisions common in such contracts. The contract further provides that, until after the delivery thereinafter specified, “the title and possession of all the hay, grain, crops and produce on said premises shall be and remain” in the defendant. ■ It was further agreed that said plaintiff should deliver one-fourth of all grain or other farm produce, at an elevator named, free of all cost to defendant. It
The respondent’s counsel suggests, in his brief, that the. order is not an appealable one; but, as no motion was made to dismiss the appeal, we do not deem it necessary to pass upon that question, and shall assume, for the purposes of this decision, that the appeal is properly before us.
The appellant contends that, the defendant having, as alleged in the complaint, prevented him from completing his con-, tract, he is entitled to recover of the defendant what his services were reasonably worth, and hence the allegation stricken out is a proper one in the complaint, and striking it out was error. The respondent contends that the contract does not create the relation of master and servant between the parties and hence that the only damages plaintiff could in any event recover are the value of his three fourths interest in the crop raised, less the expense of harvesting and threshing the same. The contract in this case belongs to that class of contracts for the cultivation of lands for a share of the crop that has given rise to much diversity in the decisions of the courts as to their nature and the measure of damages for a breach of the same. Some courts have been inclined to regard them in the nature of leases and to apply to them the rules applicable to breaches of contracts for leasing. Other courts have treated them as more in the nature of contracts for hire, the services to be paid for by a share of the crop. Porter v. Chandler, 27 Minn. 301, 7 N. W. 142; Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, pp. 897-899. Much of this diversity in the decisions has undoubtedly arisen by reason of the various stipulations in such contracts, in which slight changes in their terms hay produced important differences in the views
Upon the breach of the contract, as alleged in the complaint, by the defendant, he became liable to the plaintiff for such damages as would compensate him for the detriment proximately caused by such breach (Comp. Laws, § 4581), not exceeding ‘the amount the plaintiff could have gained by a full performance” of the contract on both sides (Comp. Laws, § 4617). But the plaintiff cannot claim that, by reason of the breach, the relations of the parties to each other have been changed. If.the plaintiff was not a servant or employe of the defendant under the terms of the contract, he does not become such by the breach thereof. Assuming the facts to be as alleged in the complaint, the plaintiff was entitled to the performance of the contract on the part of the defendant, and to his right to his share in the profits or benefits derivable from the contract, of which he has been deprived by the defendant. His damages, therefore, are the amount of the detriment caused by the breach. In other words, what has the plaintiff lost by reason of the breach on the part of the defendant? Clearly, only what he could have realized from his three-fourths of the crops, except corn, to the whole of which he was entitled, and such other benefits as he was entitled to under the terms of the contract, less the cost of completing the same on his part; or, as stated in Taylor v. Bradley, supra, the value of his contract at the time the breach occurred. The plaintiff’s claim for damages in this case is quite analogous to that of the plaintiff in Cranmer v. Kohn (S. D.) 64 N. W. 125, in which this court held that the contract itself furnished the measure of damages, and that the plaintiff could not be permitted to prove the monthly value of his services. That, like the case at bar, was an action for a breach of the contract, and the amount that the
The paragraph stricken out alleged the value of certain labor and services, clearly required to be performed under and as a part of the plaintiff’s contract. The defendant had neither directly nor indirectly assumed the payment for any such services, as such, and hence the paragraph was clearly irrelevant, and had no proper place in the complaint. These observations lead to the conclusion that the matter in the paragraph stricken out was properly stricken out. The order of the circuit court striking out the same is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings according to law.