Johnson v. Walker
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Contract to recover the balance due upon an agreement to work for the defendants for a year. Trial in the Superior Court, before Lathrop, J. The plaintiff introduced evidence tending to prove the following facts. The defendants on December 1, 1886, hired the plaintiff to be the foreman of the gang-room in their shoe shop at Brockton, for the term of one year, at a salary of twenty-four dollars a week.
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Contract to recover the balance due upon an agreement to work for the defendants for a year. Trial in the Superior Court, before Lathrop, J. The plaintiff introduced evidence tending to prove the following facts. The defendants on December 1, 1886, hired the plaintiff to be the foreman of the gang-room in their shoe shop at Brockton, for the term of one year, at a salary of twenty-four dollars a week. The plaintiff was to have charge of a number of men employed in such room, to superintend them and see that they were kept employed, to lay out their work and to see that it was properly done;…
1Opinion of the CourtMorton, J.
If the contract was an absolute one, the plaintiff is entitled to recover. There were no qualifications annexed to it in terms. But we think, as matter of law, it must be deemed to have been a qualified and conditional contract. It related to the personal services of the plaintiff. These could be performed by no one except him. The work to which they related could be done by another; but his own services could be rendered by no one except himself. They could be rendered by him only so long as he was of sufficient health and capacity. We think, therefore, that it was implied that inability…
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