Case Name: GRESSING v. MUSICAL INSTRUMENT SALES CO.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1915-07-09
Citations: 154 N.Y.S. 420
Docket Number: No. 7413
Parties: GRESSING v. MUSICAL INSTRUMENT SALES CO.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 154
Pages: 420–423

Head Matter:
GRESSING v. MUSICAL INSTRUMENT SALES CO.
(No. 7413.)
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
July 9, 1915.)
Master and Servant <S=»8—Contract oe Hiring—Construction.
A contract of hiring was contained in letters stating that the defendant would pay the plaintiff a certain per cent, on sales in each store in which defendant had goods on sale, he paying also a salary of $3,000, and guaranteeing a net income of not less than $4,000 per annum, and this agreement to follow plaintiff in each succeeding year. Held not a hiring for a year, but a general or indefinite hiring, which is prima facie at will.
[Ed. Note.-—For other cases, see Master and Servant, Cent. Dig. §§ 8-10, 17; Dec. Dig. <@==>8.]
Hotchkiss, J., dissenting.
<S=3For other cases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes
Appeal from Trial Term, New York County.
Action by Otto A. Grossing against the Musical Instrument Sales Company. From a judgment on verdict for plaintiff, and from an order denying its motion for new trial, defendant appeals. Reversed, and complaint dismissed.
Argued before INGRAHAM, P. J., and CLARKE, SCOTT, DOWLING, and HOTCHKISS, JJ.
William B. Ellison, of New York City, for appellant.
John J. Connell, of New York City, for respondent.

Opinion:
INGRAHAM, P. J.
Plaintiff brings this action, based upon a breach of a contract of employment contained in two letters written by the defendant to the plaintiff, copies of which are annexed to the complaint. There is no allegation and no proof of any other contract, except that contained in these two letters. In the first letter, dated July 19, 1912, the defendant stated his proposition to the plaintiff, and, after reciting certain contracts that the defendant had with two firms who had department stores in the city of New York, the letter continued:
"We will agree to pay you one-half of 1 per cent, on sales up to the guaranty in each respective store. Taking, for example, McCreery's Twenty-Third Street Store, we will pay you one per cent, commission; in McOreery's Thirty-Fourth Street Store we will pay you one-half of 1 per cent, commission on sales up to $100,000, and 1 per cent, commission on sales above this amount; in O'Neill-Adams', 'one-half of 1 per cent, on talking machine sales up to $150,000, and 1 per cent, on sales above this amount, paying you also a salary of $3,000 per annum, and guaranteeing you a net income of not less than $4,000 per annum."
The further letter of July 26, 1912, apparently has no relation to the term of plaintiff's employment. In charging the jury the court said:
"It is the duty of the court to construe written agreements, and in the construction of that instrument I construe it to be a contract for a year, and I charge you, as matter of law, that there was a contract in this case for a year."
And to this charge the defendant excepted. I think the court was wrong in this construction of the contract. It is settled in this state that:
"The rule is inflexible that a general or indefinite hiring is prima facie a hiring at will; and if the servant seeks to make it out a yearly hiring, the burden is upon him to establish it by proof. A hiring at so much a day, week, month, or year, no time being specified, is an indefinite hiring, and no presumption attaches that it was for a day even, but only at the rate fixed for whatever time the party may serve. " Vann, J., in Watson v. Carmelo Gugino, 204 N. Y. 535, 98 N. E. 18, 39 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1090, Ann. Cas. 1913D, 215.
This was a restatement of the rule stated in Martin v. New York Life Ins. Co., 148 N. Y. 117, 42 N. E. 416, where it was said:
"A contract to pay one $2,500 a year for services is not a contract for a year, but a contract to pay at the rate of $2,500 a year for services actually rendered, and is determinable at will by either party."
See, also, Cuppy v. Stollwerck, 158 App. Div. 628, 143 N. Y. Supp. 967.
We can find nothing in this contract which takes this case out of the inflexible rule thus stated. In this contract there was no agreement to hire the plaintiff at all. What the defendant agreed to was to pay plaintiff 1 per cent, on sales up to the guaranty in each respective store, and they took, for example, a store upon which defendant was to pay the plaintiff, one-half of 1 per cent, on sales up to $50,000 and 1 per cent, on sales above that amount. Both parties evidently contemplated that plaintiff would remain in defendant's employ for some period, as it is said in the letter that this agreement would follow plaintiff in each succeeding year without its being necessary for plaintiff to ask for a new agreement, "as, of course, it will work automatically." I can see nothing in this agreement, however, to indicate that plaintiff was to remain in defendant's employ for any period. This contract was to work automatically, by which plaintiff was to be entitled to receive the commissions stated for the period in which he continued in defendant's employ; but either party had the right to terminate the employment "at any time, when, of course, the commissions would cease. The defendant - further agreed that the defendant was to pay plaintiff a salary of $3,000 per annum, and guaranteed him a net income of not less than $4,000 per annum. But this, under the cases cited, was simply a criterion by which the amount that plaintiff should receive for the services that he rendered was to be determined, and there is nothing in either of these contracts, as I read it, employing the plaintiff for any period, or entailing upon either party an obligation either to continue the services or to pay compensation after the employment was terminated.
I think, therefore, that the judgment appealed from must be reversed, and, as the cause of action of .plaintiff's complaint is based entirely upon these letters, that the complaint should be dismissed, with costs to the defendant in this court and the court below.
CLARKE, SCOTT, and DOWLING, JJ., concur.