Court Opinion

ID: 9693453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:42:07.921216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:47.127361
License: Public Domain

Gehl, J.
(dissenting). I am in complete accord with the majority in their conclusion that there is ample support for the jury’s answer to the question which was submitted. I am unable to agree however that there is support for the trial judge’s determination that the agreement, which the jury found to have been made, could have been performed on the part of the defendant within one year from its date. Plaintiff testified:
"Q. Did he [Mr. Clausen] state [on September 18, 1949] whether or not when the commission would ^e payable? A. He told me it would be annually.”
This testimony can'be given but one construction—that plaintiff was to be paid after a year of service which commenced on September' 19, 1949. The contract is within the statute of frauds and void. Chase v. Hinkley, 126 Wis. 75, 105 N. W. 230.
But the trial judge concluded and the majority agree that the testimony discloses that the commission was to be payable at the end of the fiscal year, a date within the year *501following the date of the contract. If that was the understanding it must appear from plaintiff’s testimony. No one else testified upon that issue. In fact defendant denied that any agreement for the payment of commissions was ever made. He gave the following testimony:
“Q. Now, until the first year went by you had no occasion to talk to Mr. Clausen about your commission? A. That’s right.”
There he discloses by his own testimony that he himself did not consider that he was to be paid until the end of the year.
Following the foregoing he testified:
“Q. Did you ask him later on again? A. Yes, I mentioned it to him when I figured the auditors had the books posted and he told me that the inventory was off and he would have to take another.
“Q. Did you take another inventory? A. Yes.
11Q. About when was that? A. The fiscal year ended in August . . . 1950.”
I am unable to read out of the last-quoted testimony (which is all there is in the record which bears upon the subject) any suggestion that (1) the discussion was had before the end of plaintiff’s first year of service, (2) that at the time plaintiff was employed it was understood that he was to be paid before September 19, 1950, more than one year after the date of the contract, (3) the reference to “fiscal year” indicates that it was originally agreed that plaintiff was to be paid at the close of defendant’s fiscal year; it is no more than a statement that he understood that the inventory .was to be taken at that time.