Nicholson v. Patchin

Decided July 1, 1855

California Supreme Court · decided 1855-07-01

Assumpsit for services rendered as a clerk for the defendant. The case was referred to Edward Stanly, to report a judgment, who found the facts as stated in the opinion of the Court, and gave judgment for the plaintiff, who sued on. a quantum meruit. The Court refused to set aside the report of the Referee, and defendant appealed.

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Decided 1855-07-01

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Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1955

6 state decisions

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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Murray, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

¶1Heydenfeldt, J., concurred,

¶2The report of the Referee shows that the defendant employed the plaintiff for one month, for one hundred dollars; that the plaintiff after-wards remained in his service; and that no new contract was made as to the rate of compensation.

¶3The Referee has proceeded on the ground that the plaintiff is entitled to recover upon a quantum meruit. The rule of law applicable in such cases is, that where the person hired continues in employment without any new contract, the fair presumption is, that both parties understood that the same salary is to be paid. See the N. H. Iron Factory Company v. Jonas Richardson, 5 N. H., 295, and the cases there cited.

¶4The Referee having thus mistaken the rule of law applicable to the facts of the case, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.