Laughlin v. Manson

The action is to recover damages for breach of a contract of employment. The answer was, in effect, a general denial.

The defendant was the lessee of a hotel at St. George, Bermuda, and in February, 1909, advertised, in the city of New York, for a manager to take charge of the business. The plaintiffs, who are husband and wife, answered his advertisement, and, after several interviews, were engaged by him, the husband to act as manager of the hotel and the wife to assist him generally. When the negotiations had been concluded, the defendant wrote and delivered the following letter to the plaintiff John P. Laughlin:

“New York, March 2, 1909.

“Mr. John P. Laughlin, New York City—Dear Sir:. In accordance with our conversation, I will employ you to manage the St. George’s Hotel in Bermuda, and your wife to assist you generally by looking after the housework, and also assist in the front of the house; your joint salary to be one hundred and fifty dollars ($150.00) per month. You are to take charge on March 6, 1909, from which date your salary will commence.

“Yours very truly, Philip Manson.”

The defendant also gave the plaintiffs a letter of introduction to a Capt. Myers, who was the president of the corporation which owned the hotel property, stating that he had engaged the plaintiffs in the capacities already mentioned. The plaintiffs accordingly went to Bermuda, arriving there on March 6, 1909. On their arrival they presented their letter of introduction to Capt. Myers, who, however, was about to leave for New York, and, not having time to go to the hotel with them, directed them to see Harry Manson, the defendant’s brother, and made the following indorsement on the letter:

“Mr. Harry Manson: Please let Mr. Miles take his former position. He is employed by the week. You represent your brother, Philip Manson. Mr. Laughlin will arrange with you.”

On the evening of their arrival the plaintiffs accordingly saw Harry Manson and presented the letter, with Capt. Myers’ indorsement, to him. He said:

“I don’t know what my brother means by sending a man down here now as manager. I cannot understand what he means by sending down a manager, when I cablegrammed him that I had placed a manager in here. I cannot place you now. I cannot let this man go, who has been here and assisting us for two or three months; and the guests have learned that you have come down in a ship some way or another, and they are all up in arms, and they will all leave to-morrow, and the help would walk out to-morrow, if you took possession.”

The plaintiff John P. Laughlin, however, insisted that he must take charge, and it was finally arranged that Harry Manson should tele

“There is no use of your talking of this cablegram. I have the. power of attorney in this hotel. I am his (the defendant’s) representative, and I am going to run this hotel. It does not make any difference what my brother wires me. It would be detrimental to him, and he would lose money. You do not want my brother to lose money."

The plaintiff John P. Laughlin said that he did not, but that he did want the position. Apparently no cable was sent by Harry Manson to his brother. Harry Manson further said that, if his brother wanted to come down there and run the house, he could do it, but as long as he was there he was running the house; that he had a power of attorney from his brother to run the house, and was going to do it.

On one occasion the plaintiff John P. Laughlin went behind the desk in the hotel, took off his hat as though he was in possession, and stayed there until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning. While he was there Harry Manson came in and told him “that the help was disrupted.” The next morning, about 5:30 o’clock, he saw Harry Manson in the office, and the latter said that he had been out for two hours hunting up the help, and trying to get them to come back and go to work, and he added:

“I order you out of this office, and I do not want you to go Into the kitchen; and, if you do, we will have no help here to-day, and the quests will all leave.”

The plaintiff wrote several letters to the defendant, explaining the situation in detail and asking instructions. The defendant admitted that, although he had received these letters, he had made no answer to them. The plaintiff also consulted a New York attorney, who happened to be at the hotel at the time, and who, upon his return, wrote the defendant, asking him to appoint an interview, when he could see the defendant and explain the condition of affairs in Bermuda, with a view to straightening out the situation. The defendant, however, refused to see the attorney or have anything to do with him.

After remaining in Bermuda for two weeks, and being advised by Capt. Myers and instructed by Harry Manson to return to New York, the plaintiffs did so by the steamer sailing on March 20th. They later brought this action to recover damages for breach of the contract of employment, and recovered judgment, from which the defendant has taken this appeal.

It is urged that, as the letter of March 2, 1909, did not specify that the plaintiffs’ employment was to be for a definite time, it must be taken to have been a hiring terminable at the will of either party. This would be so, if the plaintiffs’ case rested on the letter alone. Martin v. Insurance Co., 148 N. Y. 117 , 121, 42 N. E. 416 . But both the plaintiffs testified that they were engaged for two months absolutely, at the salary named in the letter, with the understanding that their employment beyond that period would depend upon the success of their management.

The letter has no appearance of being a complete memorandum of the agreement between the parties. In view of the circumstances surrounding the parties, the distance of the place of performance, and

It is further objected that the acts and declarations of Harry Manson were improperly admitted in evidence, and that the plaintiffs’ case shows that they abandoned the performance of their agreement, and consequently cannot recover. Both plaintiffs testified, however-, that in the course of their negotiations with the defendant he had told them that Harry Manson was acting as his representative in Bermuda; and there was also testimony that, although the defendant had told the plaintiffs more or' less of the disorganized condition of the business and of his difficulties with his employes, he had assured them that there would be no trouble whatever in taking possession,, and that Capt. -Myers, to whom he gave them a letter, would install them. Upon this phase of the case I am satisfied that the plaintiffs were justified in dealing with Harry Manson and Capt. Myers, to the extent that they did, as the agents of the defendant, and that what these agents did and said on the occasions in question was properly admitted in evidence. The plaintiffs found Harry Manson in actual possession of the hotel and exercising control, and he refused to permit them to take charge of the place, and ordered them out. The plaintiffs appear to have acted in the highest good faith in the difficult situation in which they found themselves, and seem to have desired to avoid doing anything which would jeopardize the interests of their employer or disorganize his business. They communicated the situation to him in detail in several' letters, and desired their attorney to call upon him' and explain the condition of affairs and ask instructions. He ignored their letters and refused to see their representative, and now maintains that, as they were employed to manage and run the hotel and have admittedly failed to do so, they are out of court, because of nonperformance of their part of the agreement. But the trial court evidently believed that they had been employed to manage and conduct a hotel, of which they had been promised peaceful and undisputed possession, and that it was no part of their duty to take possession by force or arms, or against the protests of the agents whom the defendant had himself accredited to them. The evidence amply supports that view of the case, if, indeed it would have sustained any other.

Judgment affirmed, with costs. All concur.