Walker v. Johnson/Opinion of the Court

by Samuel Freeman Miller

United States Supreme Court

96 U.S. 424

Walker  v.  Johnson

The first error arises upon the proposition of defendant, that the contract, being one not to be performed within a year from the time it was made, and resting only in parol, was void, and could not sustain the action. Evidence was given which tended to show that the agreement between plaintiff and defendant was made early in November, 1869, and renewed or modified in April, 1870. As by the terms of the original contract with the canal commissioners the work was to be completed on or before Sept. 1, 1871, defendant insisted that his contract for delivery of stone had the same time to ran; and his counsel asked the court to instruct the jury that it was void, if it appeared from the Farwell, Lake, and Walker contract that it was not the intention and understanding of the parties that the same should be performed formed within the space of one year from the making of the verbal agreement between plaintiff and defendant.

The court refused this instruction, and told the jury that if it appeared from the contract itself that it was not to be performed, or was not intended to be performed, within a year, it was void; but that if it was a contract which might have been performed within a year, and which the plaintiff, at his option, might have required the defendant to perform within a year, it was not within the statute.

We think the court ruled correctly, both in what it charged and in what it refused.

1. In order to bring a parol contract within the statute, it must appear affirmatively that the contract was not to be performed within the year. We have had occasion to examine this question very recently in the case of McPherson v. Cox (supra, p. 404). We said, in that case, that the statute 'applies only to contracts which, by their terms, are not to be performed within the year, and not to contracts which may not be performed within that time.' The court said, in regard to that case, which was a contract by a lawyer to conduct a suit in court, that there was nothing to show that it could not have been fully performed within a year. So, in this case, the lock and dam were to be completed on or before Sept. 1, 1871. Clearly, the contractor had the right to push his work so as to finish it before November, 1870, which would have been within a year from the date of Walker's contract with plaintiff.

If plaintiff had a right to do his work within that time, he had a right to require of defendant to deliver the stone necessary to enable him to do it. There is no error in the action of the court on this branch of the subject.

2. It will be observed that, by the agreement of Walker with his partners, he was to deliver at Henry in canal-boats. Evidence was given tending to show that, in the spring of 1870, it was agreed between him and plaintiff that he should deliver by railroad; and the court charged the jury that it was competent for the parties to change the contract in that regard, if they chose; and that if the jury found that defendant did so agree, he was bound by such agreement as he made, if any.

The original contract between Johnson and Walker was in parol; and if the parties, for their mutual convenience, or for no good reason at all, choose a delivery by rail, both of them consenting thereto, we think that the change in the mode of delivery became a part of the contract.

3. There was evidence tending to show that, while defendant was performing part of the contract, he received notice from plaintiff that he would take no more stone from him; and also evidence that, shortly after this, the parties had an interview, in which this notice was waived, and Walker agreed to go on with the contract. On this part of the case the court said:--

'If the testimony satisfies you that the defendant did, after the notice of the 12th of May, recognize the contract as still in force, and promise the plaintiff that he would go on and complete the same, the defendant cannot now claim as a defence to this action that said notice released him from the performance of the contract.

'If, on the contrary, you are satisfied that the defendant made no agreement after the notice to stop on the 12th of May, recognizing the contract as still in force, or promising to perform it or continue it in force, then the defence may be considered made out, although the notice to suspend might entitle the defendant to damages; but I do not think it necessary to discuss the question of the defendant's damages.'

The court, however, did, in answer to a suggestion of counsel for defendant, that the latter would have a right to damages for the withdrawal of the contract by plaintiff, proceed to make some remarks on that subject to which defendant excepts, and which he now assigns for error.

We do not see any thing in these remarks to complain of, except that they were irrelevant to any issue in the case. There was no plea or cross-demand under those damages could have been passed upon by the jury. As they in nowise prejudiced defendant in the present action, we are not called on to consider further their soundness as matter of law.

4. The court was asked to instruct the jury 'that verbal admissions, while, if deliberately made and precisely identified, they frequently furnish satisfactory evidence, are to be received with great caution; and the attention of the jury should be directed, in passing upon alleged verbal admissions, to whether the witnesses testifying thereto distinctly understood the party charged in what he said, and whether they have or have or have not, intentionally or unintentionally, failed to express what was actually said.' But the court refused said instruction.

This is the ground of the last assignment of error.

There is nothing in the testimony, as we find it in the bill of exceptions, to which such a charge could apply. There are no admissions, properly so called, of defendant relied on in the case. The testimony in regard to the renewal of the contract after plaintiff's letter to defendant, that he would receive no more stone from him, is not an admission: it is a conversation between plaintiff and defendant, in which the contract is renewed or the abandonment waived. It is expicitly stated by plaintiff that defendant agreed to recommence the delivery of stone and complete the contract. Whatever else this may be, it is no admission. This word, in the sense of the quotation from Greenleaf, asked by counsel as a charge, means an admision by a party of some existing fact or circumstance which tells against him in the trial, and does not relate to the terms in which a substantive verbal contract is made by the parties.

Besides, it is apparent that the attention of the jury was directed by the court to all the matters essential to their understanding the case; and we do not admit that a court is bound to give to the jury, at the instance of counsel, every philosophical remark found in text-books of the law, however wise or true they may be in the abstract, or however high the reputation of the author.

We find no error in the record, and the judgment of the Circuit Court is

Affirmed.

Notes