160 Iowa 30 | Iowa | 1913
Plaintiff is a minor, and brings this action by his next friend to recover amount claimed to be due for services rendered by the plaintiff for the defendant between the 1st day of March, 1908, and the 26th day of November, 1908, and as a basis for his claim alleges that, at the instance and request of the defendant, he performed labor and services for the defendant as a farm hand from the 1st day of March, 1908, to the 26th day of November, 1908, and that the' defendant orally agreed to pay plaintiff for his labor and services when rendered the reasonable value thereof; that his services so rendered were reasonably worth the sum of $15 a month. The defendant for answer to the plaintiff’s claim denies that the plaintiff performed any services for him as a farm hand; denies that he employed the plaintiff to work for him; and denies that he is indebted to the plaintiff in any
"We think the witness was shown to be competent and her testimony properly left to the jury to be weighed by them. The weight of her testimony was for the jury and not for the court. It might, under those circumstances, have very little probative force; but it was for the jury to say, under all the facts and circumstances disclosed, what weight should be given to that testimony. The cross-examination was brief, and but few facts elicited from the witness tending to' discredit her statement that she knew the value of the boy’s services. She knew this boy, his physical strength, his habits of industry, his ability to work, and the general character of the work expected of a boy on a farm such as defendant’s and it might weE be assumed that she was correct in her statement that she knew the value of his services, although she had not personally seen him engaged in work at this place, and had no personal knowledge of what particular work he did on defendant’s farm.
The defendant, responding to plaintiff’s claim,'also alleges a contract made with plaintiff’s mother, and alleges that the services were rendered under the contract alleged by him; that no change or alteration was made therein from the time he took the plaintiff into his home and until the plaintiff left.
It is further claimed that the court erred in requiring the defendant to prove the matters alleged in his answer in so far as that pleading charges that the services were rendered under a contract between him and the plaintiff’s mother. To be sure this contract must be pleaded and proven in order to raise any presumption, such as plaintiff contends for, that the services were rendered gratuitously, and that the services sued for were rendered at a time when the plaintiff sustained such relationship to the defendant’s family as would raise such a presumption, and we see no error in requiring this of the defendant.
Other errors are assigned; but, in so far as they affect the matter in controversy, we think them sufficiently disposed of by what has been heretofore said, and the judgment is Affirmed.