148 Pa. 401 | Pa. | 1892
Opinion by
The plaintiff served the decedent in the double capacity of housekeeper and nurse, for several years. He was a feeble old man, about eighty years old, and her duties as nurse were rendered more arduous and disagreeable by his gross intemperance. She was not related to him by blood or marriage, but occupied the position of a hired servant or employee. A year or more before his death her health gave way, and thereafter two persons were employed to perform the services previously rendered by her. The services rendered by her could, in the absence of any agreement, fixing a price upon them, have been recovered for upon a quantum meruit: Smith v. Milligan, 43 Pa. 107. The evidence in this case was amply sufficient to justify a jury in finding that the services rendered by the plaintiff were worth at least $5.00 per week, if that question had been before them. But the defendants did not deny that the services claimed for had been rendered, nor did they allege that they were worth less than the witnesses on the part of the plaintiff estimated them at. Their defence was, that the plaintiff had contracted to work at the rate of $1.00 per week, and could recover no more, without proof of a new and additional contract. The learned judge of the court below took this view of the case, and said, in entering the compulsory nonsuit: “ This was a contract between the plaintiff and the defendant. The presumption, without anything further, would be, that it was in full of all the services she rendered. To remove that presumption, it is incumbent on the plaintiff to show that there was an additional contract. In that, we think, she has failed.” The only question raised on this record is, whether there is any evidence that should have been submitted to the jury, upon the question of the decedent’s contract, or promise to pay, for the services of the plaintiff, in waiting upon and nursing him. In Ranck v. Albright, 36 Pa. 367, no promise to pay for the additional services was alleged, but the plaintiff sought to recover a larger price than she had agreed to accept, because the defendant had, after his contract with her, so added to his business as considerably to increase her labor, and the value
The judgment is reversed, and a venire facias de novo awarded.