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12 Vt. 617

Brown v. Kimball

Supreme Court of Vermont

Decided August 15, 1839

Supreme Court of Vermont · decided 1839-08-15

This was an action of book account. Judgment to account having been rendered by the county court, an auditor was appointed, who afterwards reported that the plaintiff presented an account for two months and seventeen days work, at twelve dollars per month, amounting to {$31,50, in relation to which the auditor further reported, that on the 14th of April, 1838, the plaintiff contracted to work for the defendant for the term of six and one half months at twelve dollars a…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1839-08-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently May 1916

1 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Redfield, J.

¶2— In this case, the auditor finds that the labor, for which the plaintiff seeks to recover, was done in part performance of an entire contract between the parties for six and a half months labor, and that the plaintiff voluntarily abandoned the contract at the end of two and a half months. Whether the contract was to become absolute for the full term, if neither party elected to determine it at the end of one month, and whether the plaintiff left the employment of defendant without cause, are questions of fact within the absolute province of the auditor to determine, both of which questions he has determined against the plaintiff. Under this state of facts, it is quite impossible for the plaintiff to expect to recover. Steamboat Co. v. Wilkins, 8 Vt. R. 54. 1 Swift’s Dig. 682,683. Faxon v. Mansfield, 2 Mass. R. 147. Cut*619ter v. Powell, 6 T. R. 321. Jennings v. Camp. 13 Johns. R. 94.

¶3In a late case it was considered that where the party, in a contract of this character, is prevented from fulfilling his undertaking by sickness, or other inevitable accident, he may recover for part performance. Fenton v. Clark, 11 Vt. R. 557. This, however, could not aid the plaintiff in this case.

¶4The judgment of the county court is affirmed.

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