15 Pa. Super. 476 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1900
Opinion by
The plaintiff was employed by the defendant company as a salesman under a contract in writing, was discharged from said employment before the expiration of the term agreed upon, and subsequently brought this action. He does not print his Statement, and we are unable to determine from the record as
There was no dispute as to any fact material to the disposition of the questions involved. The contract was in writing, there was no ambiguity upon its face, and there was no evidence which would have warranted a finding that any word therein used had, with regard to that particular subject-matter, a technical meaning different from that which it ordinarily conveyed. The construction of this contract and the ascertainment of the rights of the parties thereunder was for the court. There was no dispute as to the fact of the discharge before the expiration of the term of service, nor that the plaintiff had pursued the course of action for which the defendant company asserted the right to discharge him. The question whether under the written agreement and the undisputed facts there was a sufficient reason for the' dismissal of the plaintiff was a question of law for the court: Matthews v. Park Bros., 146 Pa. 384; 159 Pa. 579; Gallagher v. Wayne Steam Company, 188 Pa. 95. The plaintiff had received from his employer a written order to be in Albany upon a certain day and there see all the trade; from there to proceed to Utica, Oswego, Courtlandt, Ithaca, Elmira and Milton. He replied to this in writing, stating that he had no money with which to start on the trip, and saying “ forward check and I shall go.” In a postscript he suggested that the cost of the trip from Elmira to Milton be paid by the defendant company. To this letter the defendant company replied declining to furnish the money, notifying him that they expected him to be in Albany upon the day mentioned, and changing the route to be followed by the plaintiff by directing that upon leaving Elmira he go to Troy, Muncy, Sunbury and Harrisburg, Pa., “ to see the trade, and stop at Milton to see us,
The whole case, therefore, must turn upon the construction of the contract. In construing such a contract we must do so with a view to the general purpose which the parties were seeking to accomplish when they formulated the details of the arrangement. All the testimony agrees, and the instrument indicates upon its face, that this written contract was in the nature of a proposition submitted by the plaintiff and afterwards accepted by the defendant. The contract throughout uses the personal pronoun “ I ” when referring to the plaintiff; it was a statement to the defendant of what the plaintiff proposed to do for it, and the compensation which he expected to receive therefor. When the plaintiff’s proposition was accepted, and the contract in this form executed, he became thereby engaged with the defendant company for the sale of such goods as they might manufacture or have to sell. He was guaranteed a salary of $2,500 a year, payable in monthly instalments, for a period of two years, and was to receive, in addition, five per centum on all sales in excess of $50,000 per year, and he was to have the sale and receive credit, no matter by whom sold, for all goods sold in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and all of Pennsylvania except certain portions designated. It was “ further agreed that, in consideration of the aforesaid $2,500 per year, the plaintiff was to pay all his own
The defendant company had an unquestionable right under the contract to order the plaintiff to go to Elmira and the other cities designated in its letter of instruction, some of which cities he had never visited, although he had been drawing his salary for almost a year. The fact that it suggested that after he had finished his duties as a salesman in the cities designated he should return by way of Milton and stop off there, is not material; it may not have had the right to require him to go-to Milton, but it certainly did have the right to send him to the other cities, and when he got through with his business trip, he could have gone home by any route that he chose. The factory of the defendant company was located at Milton; that it should ask a salesman to whom it was paying $2,500 a year to stop off and visit its place of business was not an unreasonable request, and it is certain that the mere making of such a suggestion would not relieve the plaintiff from performing the duties which his contract imposed upon him. The plaintiff ad-
The judgment is affirmed.