20 Barb. 387 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1855
Where one person performs labor for another, the law presumes a request, and a promise to pay what such labor is reasonably worth, unless it is understood that it is to be performed gratuitously, or if it is performed under circumstances which repel the presumption of a promise, that compensation shall be made. In this case it was understood that the defendant was to make compensation for the plaintiff’s services. Townsend, who claimed the plaintiff as his apprentice at the time he went into the defendant’s service, expressly testifies that he required an equivalent from the defendant for the plaintiff’s services, in making improvements upon the farm, such as fencing, clearing land and the like. The defendant then occupied the farm as the tenant of Townsend, working it on shares. There being an express agreement or understanding that compensation for the services was to be made, the only question that can possibly arise as to the right of action, is whether the plaintiff can maintain it for the services thus rendered. It does not appear from the evidence that the defendant has ever made the compensation agreed upon, to Townsend, so that the case is relieved from all embarrassment on that score. And indeed it is difficult to see how Townsend ever had any right to demand or receive the equivalent stipulated for. His claim rested upon the indenture of apprenticeship alone, and that not having been made or consented to by any authorized person, was entirely void. (2 R.S. 154, §§ 1, 2, 3.) The plaintiff’s grandfather, who had brought
The referees decided correctly in allowing the plaintiff to prove the value of his services by the opinions of witnesses who were acquainted with the value of labor in the vicinity. They also decided correctly, I think, in rejecting the evidence on the same subject offered by the defendant. There is no such difficulty in reconciling the decisions as the defendant’s counsel seems to suppose. The defendant offered to prove by his witnesses what the plaintiff’s services were worth over and above his board, clothing and schooling furnished by the defendant, without proving or offering to prove that the witnesses knew the quantity or value of either item assumed by the question to have been furnished. This, as the referees properly suggest,
There was, in my judgment, no error committed at the trial, nor in the conclusions of law, upon the facts established, and the judgment .should be affirmed.
Selden, T. R. Strong and Johnson, Justices.]