20 A.2d 82 | Conn. | 1941
The plaintiff had the exclusive agency for the products of the defendant in Danbury and vicinity from February to September, 1934. The agency was then revoked. Thereupon the plaintiff brought an action against the defendant, claiming damages for breach of contract in the second count and on a quantum meruit basis in the third. The first count was withdrawn. The jury rendered a general verdict for the plaintiff which the trial court set aside.
The jury could reasonably have found the relationship between the parties to have been as follows, considering the evidence in its aspect most favorable to the plaintiff: Stanhope Healey was state distributor of the defendant's products. When beer became legal in 1933, the plaintiff sought the exclusive agency for those products for Danbury and vicinity. Healey and Baker, representing the plaintiff, had known each other well for many years. They started discussing the proposition late in 1933 and in January, 1934, made an oral arrangement that the defendant would supply the plaintiff with its products on demand and that the plaintiff was to have the exclusive agency for them within its territory. Shortly thereafter the arrangement was modified to give to the plaintiff the right to terminate it at will. The trial court and counsel for both parties have proceeded upon the theory that this was a valid modification, and we shall consider the case *682 upon the same basis. The plaintiff not only sold the products but spent considerable time, energy and money in introducing them to the trade. The agency was revoked by the defendant September 1, 1934. It pleaded various valid reasons for the revocation but the verdict for the plaintiff shows that these issues were found for the latter.
On these facts the trial court held as to the second count that the promise of the plaintiff was illusory, furnished no consideration for that of the defendant and rendered the agreement unenforcible as to its executory features; also that it was too uncertain in its terms to form the basis of a legal contract. The plaintiff claims that its exercise of the agency in accordance with its terms constituted adequate consideration and that the defendant was obliged to continue the agency until it was terminated by the plaintiff, or, for cause, by the defendant.
Many cases are cited by the plaintiff but it relies principally on our own case of Gurfein v. Werbelovsky,
The element lacking in the cases cited by the plaintiff and present in those cited by the defendant and the case at bar is the unconditional right of the plaintiff to terminate the contract at will. There was no contract as far as executory dealings were concerned. The trial court correctly held that the verdict could not be sustained under the second count.
The memorandum of decision discloses that the verdict was set aside as to the third count, not for the usual reason that it was against the evidence and not for the reason occasionally invoked that there was error in some fundamental ruling or in the charge, but because the jury had failed to follow the rules of law laid down by the court. It is the duty of the trial court, having in mind its general control over the verdict, to do this where the violation of its instructions is clear. To take an extreme instance, if a verdict should be directed for a defendant and the jury, in spite of this, brought in a plaintiff's verdict, it would be the duty *684 of the court to set it aside. The correctness of the charge is not in issue or considered on this appeal.
Where the reason for setting aside a verdict is other than because it is against the evidence, a finding is necessary. General Statutes, Cum. Sup. 1935, 1663c. In no other way can the matter be presented by the record and this is the practice. Frisbie v. Schinto,
As the case must be retried, we point out that the plaintiff could not recover the expenditures which it made in pursuance of the agency upon the basis of an implied contract. The plaintiff evidently looked for its compensation to the profits which would accrue to it from the sale of liquor supplied by the defendant; and it appears in Baker's own testimony that he talked to Healey about certain advertising he was doing and the latter stated that the defendant would not pay for that. There were lacking the elements necessary to *685
give rise to an implied contract, that services were rendered by the plaintiff in the expectation that the defendant would pay for them and were accepted by the defendant with knowledge of that expectation. Collins v. Lewis,
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.