47 La. Ann. 117 | La. | 1895
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The plaintiff has shown that he continued in the-management of the place from the 1st to the 12th of January, 1898, but, atacit reconduction of the contract of 1892 does not absolutely and necessarily flow from that fact, through a presumption juris et de jure-The fact was certainly to be considered in dealing with the relations of parties,- but it is open to explanation, and we think the explanation has been given, and does away with plaintiff’s claims. It appears-that Burton was the manager on the Laurel Valley plantation, employed for the year 1892 by Womald, its owner; that in the early part of that year, unable to meet his indebtedness to the defendants,. Womald sold them the plantation; that finding plaintiff in charge as-manager, defendants continued him to the end of the year; that-from the time they became owners, defendants, to the knowledge of the plaintiff, looked forward to a sale of the place; that in fact it was sold at public auction to third parties on January 12, 1898, under-an advertisement known to the plaintiff, which appeared in Decern - ber, before his contract terminated. He was fully informed of the intended or contemplated sale, and admits in his testimony that before-the end of the year 1892 he had a conversation with General Behan, one of the defendants, in respect to it, and in respect to the effect which that sale might have upon himself. Granting that a loose conversation as testified to by plaintiff had taken place between Zuberbier- and himself on November 12, 1892j the later one with the other-owner left him in no douht as to the situation. Behan testified that about the 25th of November, 1892, he had a conversation on the plantation with the plaintiff, in which the latter inq-uired-some-thing about the prospects for the coming year and what the owners, proposed to do with the place; that he told him it was their intention.
Under the evidence in the case we do not think it can properly be maintainéd that there was any tacit reconduction of the contract of 1892. If plaintiff had any rights in the premises, it was under the agreement alleged to have been made with him in November by Zuberbier. We do not regard plaintiff as setting up as his cause of action a tacit reeonduetion of the first contract, for he distinctly alleges that he was “ employed ” by them for the year 1893, and he refers to his continuing on the plantation merely as evidence ■of that fact. The averment is “that he was employed by them, for the year 1893, as will be seen by the fact that he was kept on the plantation.” We do not regard the continuance of Burton on the
We think it highly improbable that Zuberbier, in view of the partition between Behan and himself, and the proposed sale of Laurel Valley to effect it, would have undertaken to bind Behan and himself to an engagement of plaintiff for a year, independently of any consideration as to whether the plantation should be sold or not, or who should buy it. There must have been a misapprehension by the plaintiff as to what Zuberbier told him.
It is urged upon us that, even granting that plaintiff should not recover for his services for the whole ye'ar, he is entitled to remuner
For the reasons herein assigned, it is hereby ordered, adjudged and decreed that the judgment appealed from be and the same is ¿hereby affirmed.