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43 Vt. 180

Stone v. Stone

Supreme Court of Vermont

Decided August 15, 1870

Supreme Court of Vermont · decided 1870-08-15

<p> Assumpsit. Contract. Compensation for Labor. </p> <p>Where one goes to work for another under an agreement to be compensated in a particular way, he is entitled to compensation in money upon the refusal of the other to compensate him as was agreed upon.</p> <p>The plaintiff and defendant entered into a parol agreement, by which the plaintiff was to go to work for the defendant on his farm and. help him pay off some incumbrances thereon, and the defendant was to deed the plaintiff one half the farm, no definite time for making the deed being agreed upon. The plaintiff worked from May 1st to November under the agreement, the defendant neglecting upon repeated-demands to make the deed, and in November the plaintiff left upon giving notice th&t he should leave unless the defendant gave him the deed, which ho still neglected to do. Held, that the plaintiff could recover in assumpsit for his labor.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1870-08-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently February 1903

1 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

201870188018901900decided

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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¶1*182The opinion of the court was delivered by

Barrett, J.

¶2The defense to this action is put on the ground that the parties were tenants in common during the time the plaintiff was performing and doing what he claims to recover for. Clearly this cannot be maintained. The plaintiff acquired no title to the farm by the parol agreement under which he went to work upon it. A deed from his failer, the defendant, conformably to said pai'ol agreement, was necessary in order to create such a tenancy between them. If the defendant had deeded as he agreed to, the occasion and cause of the present suit would' not have arisen. But the defendant having refused to perform on his part the agreement in pursuance of which the plaintiff had done what he now claims to recover for, and what he thus did inuring to the benefit of the defendant, it seems clear on very common and familiar principles that the plaintiff should have pay of the defendant for what he thus did. He did it at the request of the defendant, and w;as to be compensated in a particular way. The defendant, refusing to compensate him in the way agreed, is liable to make compensation in money.

¶3The principle of the decision in Graham v. Estate of Chandler, 38 Vt., 559, is applicable, in. this case; and in leading facts the cases bear a close analogy with each other. Counsel for defense, by his brief and argument, obviously did not rely on points of objection to particular items allowed by the referee and the county court, but on the broad ground above indicated.

¶4We think the judgment was right, and it is affirmed.

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