Case ID: mo_12/html/0408-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Judge Birch", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JONES, et al. vs. MILLER.
    
      A contracted with B to build him a boat: B employed workmen to execute the work 3 after the work was completed, A promised B. that if he would deliver him possession of the boat he Would pay all the demands of the workmen who had been working on the boat. Held:
    That the workmen could not maintain assumpsit against A upon this promise, there being no consideration to uphold it.
    APPEAL FROM ST. LOUIS COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.
    Hill for appellants.
    1. The work was done at the request of Cutting, on the defendant’s boat, and the promise Was made to the plaintiffs in consideration of the delivery of the vessel by plaintiffs to defendant.
    2. This case comes within the reason of the rule as established in Bank vs. Benoist % Hackney, 10 Mo. R. 524; Robbins vs; Ayres, Ib. 540.
    3. Itis a direct promise to the plaintiffs, and the consideration moved between the plaintiffs and defendant.
    4. It is the simple case of a workman holding possession of his materials and work until the promise of defendant to pay, and they gave up possession when the defendant promised to pay.
    0. There is no want of privity in this contract. See Bank vs. Benoist & Hackney, 10 Mo. R. 524, and the declaration clearly states it.
    Williams for appellee.
    The declaration is bad in this:
    There is no good and sufficient consideration for the alleged promise;
    
      There is no averment that the plaintiffs were all the hands who worked upon the boat.
    The defendant below, appellee here, was entitled to the possession of the boat, so far as appears in this cause. Indeed, it was already in possession of his agent, who contracted for and superintended the building of the boat.
    If plaintiff's are permitted to recover, there may still be a hundred others who may sue, and thus make defendant pay more than he ever promised to pay;
    This case does not fall within the decision of Ayres vs. Bobbins, 10 Mo. R. 538.
   Judge Birch

delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an action of assumpsit, brought in the St. Louis court of common pleas. The declaration alleged that the plaintiffs were ship-carpenters, engaged in framing and planking a ferry boat for the defendant; that the work was done by them at the request of one Alfred Cutting, the builder of said boat; that the work so done ( including materials furnished by them) amounted to three hundred dollars; that said Cutting and the plaintiffs were in the possession of said boat, then on the stocks ; that the defendants, well knowing the premises, and in consideration that the plaintiffs would deliver up the possession of said boat to him, (the defendant) undertook and promised the plaintiffs to pay all the demands of the hands who had been working on said boat; and that the plaintiffs, relying on said promise, did deliver up the said boat, and afterwards requested payment, &c.

A demurrer to this declaration being sustained by the court below, the cause is brought here by appeal. Although the declaration is rather ambiguously framed, it was probably designed to bring the ease as nearly as possible within the principle which was recognised in the case of Robbins vs. Ayres, 10 Mo. Rep. 538. We are unable to perceive, however, without resort to an inadmissible latitude of assumption, how it came to pass that the plaintiffs (who were in the employ of another person, with whom the defendant had contracted and to whom he was liable for the work done on his boat) acquired such a legal possession of the defendant’s vessel, as that its alleged delivery to the owner could constitute “a valuable'consideration,” upon which to ground this action.

For these reasons, the decision of the court of common pleas is affirmed.