6 Nev. 51 | Nev. | 1870
Dy the Court,
A judgment was recovered by the plaintiffs in this case against the Overman Silver Mining Company for the sum of five hundred dollars, upon a contract claimed to have been entered into between themselves and the defendant, by the terms of which the Company agreed to pay them a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month, during the year 1869, for transacting and attending to its legal business. This salary was regularly paid up to the month of July, at which time the defendant refused to make any further payment, claiming that it had entered into no such contract with plaintiffs as claimed by them. The only question now in the case is, whether any agreement to continue for the term of a year was in fact executed by the defendant. The Court below found there was, and thereupon rendered the judgment from which this appeal is taken, but we find the evidence does not warrant such a result. It appears that at the request of the defendant’s superintendent the plaintiffs, in the month of December, A.D. 1868, submitted a written proposition to the defendant, whereby they agreed to transact and attend to all the legal business in which the defendant might be interested in the State of Nevada during the year 1869, for the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars per month. It is not claimed by the superintendent, nor does it appear to have been the understanding of plaintiffs, that that officer had the authority to execute a contract of that kind on behalf of the defendant. Neither was there any attempt on his part to do so. The evidence shows that he asked plaintiffs to make a proposition so that he might submit it to the company, and not with a view to acting upon it himself. The proposition was given to the superintendent, who sent it to the president or secretary at San Francisco.
As the superintendent did not pretend to execute the contract, or employ plaintiffs, it is necessary only to determine whether the
It is shown by plaintiffs that bills were presented to the board for the salary, claimed by them, and that they were allowed, and, indeed, paid. This evidence would doubtless raise the presumption that the plaintiffs’ proposition had been accepted by it, and was sufficient to justify that conclusion, were it not overborne by direct evidence that such was not the case. Here it is affirmatively shown that the proposition was not submitted to or acted on by the board, and thus the presumption which might otherwise arise from its action allowing the bills is entirely destroyed. Why the claims were allowed and the money ordered paid to plaintiffs, is a question not necessary to be inquired into. It is sufficient here that they did not accept the proposition.
There can be no valid executory contract unless there be a meeting of the minds of the respective parties upon its terms and conditions. “ There is no contract,” says Parsons, “ unless the parties thereto assent, and they must assent to the same thing in the same