190 Iowa 73 | Iowa | 1920
I. Plaintiff’s petition contained the following allegations:
‘ ‘ The defendant was a school teacher, and the plaintiff was a colored girl, a seamstress, and proficient in housework, sewing, and domestic affairs; and 'it was agreed that the plaintiff should, by economy and faithfulness in managing the household expenditures for food, household expense, and sewing, aid the' defendant in accumulating more property, and that the defendant would give the plaintiff a home for her life, and, in the event of defendant’s death, she would see that plaintiff was well cared for the remainder of her days, by always having a good home to live in. The plaintiff, under this agreement, entered defendant’s home at said time, and began the performance of her duties for a period of nearly 23 years, doing the defendant’s housework, cooking, and domestic work, making most of her clothing, and thus aiding defendant in accumulating farm land and city properties, to wit, so far as plaintiff now knows, a farm in Cass County, Iowa, city property at 1147 Twenty-seventh Street, and city property on Eighteenth Street in Des Moines, Iowa.”
In support of the foregoing allegations, the plaintiff, at the close of her own testimony as a witness, made the following offer of proof:
“Mr. Putnam: I want to make an offer. Comes now the plaintiff and offers to prove by the testimony of this witness that, at the time she went to live with the defendant, that the defendant then owned a farm in Cass County and a piece of city property in Prairie City; that both of said properties had a mortgage upon them; that, subsequent to her entering into the family of the defendant, the mortgage upon both pieces of property was paid off, and paid off by the earnings and savings of both the plaintiff and the defendant, and with the assistance of the plaintiff; and that the defendant purchased another piece
Upon objection, this offer was rejected, as irrelevant and immaterial. Appellant assigns error upon the ruling. The ruling was proper. This is not an action to enforce specific performance, nor is it an action for an accounting. The only prayer for judgment is what has been already set forth. Whatever remedy was open to plaintiff under her contract, she elected to claim damages for the breach of it, and to claim the reasonable value of her services as the measure of such damage. Taking her petition as true, she was entitled to just this measure of damages, regardless of whether the defendant was affluent or penniless. Her averment that she was to perform the domestic services, in order to enable the defendant to devote herself to other pursuits and to make money thereby, adds nothing to the cause of action, as she has elected to make it. In a general sense, all faithful service rendered to an employer is and ought to be an aid to such employer to devote himself to other labor, and to make money thereby. In that respect, the petition pleads a mere conclusion, and a speculative one at that. It is not claimed that the plaintiff had any part in the acquisition of the property proposed to be exhibited, except that she did the domestic work for the household. It is not claimed that there was a partnership or a joint adventure in any other sense. Assuming that the contract were proved, and the breach of it by the defendant, the one question left was the reasonable value of the plaintiff’s services. This was fixed by the petition at a maximum of $4.00 per week. If the evidence offered had been received for the purpose offered, it could only operate to enhance the damage. Inasmuch as the jury found that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover at all, no prejudice could result in rejecting enhancing evidence.
It is sufficient, however, to say that the allegations of the petition which the offered evidence tended to support were
Neither is it correct to say that the court went beyond the issues of the pleadings. Plaintiff necessarily charged the defendant with a wrongful breach of the contract, and the defendant’s general denial made an issue thereon. We see little merit in this assignment.
III. The defendant took the deposition of Margaret Neal upon certain interrogatories. The last written interrogatory submitted to such witness was as follows:
This interrogatory evoked a very lengthy answer from the witness, which has somewhat the appearance of a lengthy rehearsal of her previous answers, though none of such previous answers are included in the abstract. The court permitted the reading of this answer, over the objections of the plaintiff. At the close of the reading, the plaintiff moved to strike the same. This objection was sustained in part and overruled in part, and the appellant assigns error at this point. The objec