Court Opinion

ID: 9551012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:46:39.245518+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:53.921727
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ADAIR
dissenting.
I am unable to agree with the foregoing opinion.
By an oral agreement Frances Brown was employed as a speech instructor at Eastern Montana College of Education *557at Billings, Montana, for the ten-month academic year, commencing on September 1, 1961 and ending on June 30, 1962, and she taught under such verbal agreement from September 1, 1961, to October 6, 1961, when, for the first time, she was given a formal written contract of employment bearing date of October 6, 1961, which assumed to cover her employment for the entire period from September 1, 1961, to June 30, 1962. This contract, both the oral part and the written part, Frances Brown fully performed.
The written contract of employment dated October 6, 1961, was signed by Frances Brown, as the employee, and it was also signed by Herbert L. Steele as President of Eastern Montana College of Education, and such written contract was certified by Bussell Barthell, Secretary, State Board of Education— Ex-officio Begents of the University of Montana.
In October 1961, Frances Brown had discussions with one Marler who then was the Acting Chairman of the Speech Department in which Frances Brown taught and who asked Frances Brown to teach during the summer session of 1962, to which offer she agreed and accepted.
Frances Brown also had discussions with Lyle Cooper then the Chairman of the Division of Language and Literature regarding her employment during the coming summer session of 1962.
In a memorandum dated November 14, 1961, being Exhibit C, addressed to Frances Brown, Lyle Cooper wrote: “Your tentative schedule for the Summer Session of 1962 is as follows * *
In Exhibit G-, being the 1962 brochure for Eastern Montana College of Education, Frances Brown’s name appeared as an instructor at such institution.
All that Frances Brown had on September 1, 1961, when she entered the employ of Eastern Montana College of Education, as a speech instructor, was an oral “gentleman’s agreement” under which she worked and taught, without so much as *558the scratch of a pen to evidence her agreement until on or subsequent to October 6, 1961, when she was given a formal written contract. Since an oral contract was sufficient to cover Prances Brown’s ten months academic year, running from September 1, 1961, to June 30, 1962, a similar oral contract should have been sufficient to carry her through the following two months of the summer session running from July 1, 1962, to August 31, 1962.
I am of the opinion that the officials of Eastern Montana College of Education at Billings did have the authority to enter into a valid contract with Frances Brown.
I am further of the opinion that the trial court correctly found that the State Board of Education, acting by its duly authorized agents and employees, hired Frances Brown to teach during the summer session of 1962, and that the trial court properly concluded that Frances Brown had a binding contract of employment for the period from beginning on July 1, 1962, and ending on August 31, 1962, and that she was and is entitled to her salary of $1,300 for such two-month period for “the labourer is worthy of his hire.”