This action is prosecuted by a legal representative of Roderic C. McClellan, deceased, to recover from the defendant for labor performed by the latter during the farming season immediately preceding his death. Plaintiff obtained judgment for $53.35, and defendant appeals. There is no dispute about the facts, which, briefly stated, are as follows: Under a verbal agreement to serve defendant, for $23 per month, as a farm laborer-, from the 25th day of April. 1892, until the ground became frozen in the fall, Roderic C. McClellan began at that date and continued to work on defendant’s farm until the 16th day of August of that year, when, by reason of serious illness, he became wholly unable to perform any further manual labor, and so conthiued sick and disabled during the entire remainder of the term of his employment. Appellant admits that the service for which no
Respondent concedes, upon the record, that appellant is entitled to judgment for $1.35, together with costs and disbursements, in case it should be found, as a matter of law, that appellant’s contention is correct. No question of bad faith upon the part of either the employer or the employed is presented by the record. It does not appear reasonable that the rule by which courts measure the rights of one who willfully, and without good cause, refuses to continue in the service of his employer during the time for which he has agreed to labor, sould be applied to an unfortunate and faultless person, whom Providence has stricken down, and prevented from a full performance of his contract. Under section 3773 of the Compiled Laws, every contract of employment is terminated: “(1) By the expiration of its appointed term; (2) by the extinction of its subject; (3) by the death of the employe; or (4) .by his legal incapacity to act as such.” If it can be said that appellant’s employe quit his service “for good cause,” then under the facts admitted and stipulated in the record, the judgment appealed from must not be disturbed. Comp. Laws, § 3779.
In a note at page 453, 3 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, the phrase “good cause,” as used in statutes, is defined to be a sufficient cause”; and we say without hesitation, that the irresistible, superhuman cause which disabled, unnerved, and placed the employe of appellant upon his deathbed, is a good cause and a sufficient excuse for his failure to perform the arduous toil of an ordinary farm laborer. By the act of God he was prevented from fully performing his contract, and his administrator is entitled to recover the balance due for his services, upon a quantum meruit, without recoupment. The agreement was made with reference to the statutory and common law, which never insists upon, but always excuses, the fuli- '