Case ID: minn_174/html/0573-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Taylor, C.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HAROLD R. LOVE v. NATIONAL CREDIT CLOTHING COMPANY.
    
    June 15, 1928.
    No. 26,714.
    New trial granted because evidence was erroneously excluded.
    Action by a tax expert to recover for his services 25 per cent of the reduction claimed to have been effected in the amount of defendant’s income tax. Evidence tending to prove that he had never been em- • ployed and that no reduction had been effected was erroneously excluded.
    Master and Servant, 39 C. J. p. 199 n. 72; p. 202 n. 6.
    Defendant appealed from an order of the municipal court of Minneapolis, C. L. Smith, J. denying its alternative motion for judgment or a new trial.
    Reversed.
    
      John T. Bohwedder and F. J. Donahue, for appellant.
    
      Clarence T. Lowell, for respondent.
    
      
      Reported in 219 N. W. 913.
    
   Taylor, C.

Plaintiff alleged in his complaint that he had rendered services for defendant as an accountant and income tax specialist which resulted in a saving to defendant of more than $1,000 in the amount of its income tax, and that the reasonable value of such services was 25 per cent of the amount so saved. He asked judgment for the sum of $250. The answer denied each and all the allegations of tbe complaint. Tbe court directed tbe jury to find a verdict for plaintiff for the reasonable value of his services, and they returned a verdict for the amount claimed. Defendant appealed from an order denying its alternative motion for judgment or a new trial.

The record discloses numerous errors in excluding evidence by which defendant sought to prove that it had never employed plaintiff, and that no reduction or saving whatever had been effected in the amount of its income tax as assessed and fixed by the revenue department some considerable time before plaintiff claims to have performed any services in the matter. For these errors a new trial must be and is granted.