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36 Mich. 207

Carter v. Carter

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided April 10, 1877

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1877-04-10

This action was brought by defendant in error to recover of plaintiff in error, her uncle, the value of her services in doing house work in his family under a verbal arrangement whereby he requested her to do the work and promised her he would pay her for it. No time was fixed and no price agreed upon. The services continued during a period of about seven years, termiaiating September 14, 1869. The suit was brought July 8, 1875.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1877-04-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently April 1955

1 federal appellate · 15 state decisions

50187718801890190019101920193019401950decided

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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Graves, J:

¶1We think the verbal agreement of 1862 was for a single.*209though indefinite period of service, and not for a yearly hiring or for two or more terms.

¶2The bargain and service were alike continuous.

¶3As the understanding went on from day to day, so did performance by defendant in error on the strength of the request and promise of plaintiff in error. There was no suspension of the request or of the service. There was no break or rest or any understanding that there should be. The mutual assent for the continuance of the service, and the yielding of service under the arrangement, ceased at the same time; and while in course of being rendered the service was upon the agreement and in performance of it, and was not the subject of account, and it afforded no accrued and matured right to be affected by the statute of limitations.

¶4A right capable of being acted upon by the statute might arise out of it, but had not yet arisen. When the transaction was closed by withdrawal of defendant in error on the 14th of September, 1869, an actionable right ensued against which the statute commenced running. But it was an entire right, and applied to the entire service. At that time defendant in error was entitled to claim for the whole amount of all unpaid wages for all the service she had rendered under the agreement. This disposes of the main charge of error.

¶5The objection that certain witnesses were not qualified to testify in regard to the value of service, is not well founded. The doctrine has been so often considered that no discussion is called for.Sirrine v. Briggs, 31 Mich., 443, and cases; Stone v. Covell, 29 Mich., 359; Morrissey v. The People, 11 Mich., 327; Evans v. The People, 12 Mich., 27; Det. & Mil. R. R. Co. v. Van Steinburg, 17 Mich., 99.

¶6As no error is discovered, the judgment should be affirmed, with costs.

The other Justices concurred.
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