Court Opinion

ID: 9446736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:17:07.264694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:45.576412
License: Public Domain

DANAHER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
This case involves an oral personal service contract, admittedly entered into. Appellees insist they are free, with complete impunity, to breach their own agreement, the plan of which originated with appellee Orsinger and the promises •of which were undertaken by the appel-lee corporation.
Appellee Orsinger was president of the corporate appellee which in 1956 became the owner of Tyler Gardens, a 482-unit apartment development in Falls Church, Virginia. Orsinger’s affidavit in support of the appellees’ motion for summary judgment discloses that he knew that “one of the development’s needs was a resident manager preferably a husband-wife team.” He, for some years, had been a summertime neighbor of appellant’s parents. From appellant’s mother he learned, on September 30, 1956, that appellant had recently returned from Army service and had already secured a position as a real estate salesman. Upon his further ascertaining that appellant had registered as a student at the Georgetown Law Center, Orsinger suggested that he “might be able to offer a less precarious position but with compensation which would enable the plaintiff to take care of himself and his family and finance his education.” Orsinger’s interest in appellant stemmed not only from his friendship with appellant’s parents, his neighbors, but from the fact, as he said, that he once had had the “double burden of financing my law school education and taking care of my family.” Or-singer’s proposition to the appellant was discussed in the presence of the latter’s family, and appellant was asked to meet Orsinger the following day at the latter’s Washington law office. “I told him that the position was available at a salary of $75.00 a week, plus a two bedroom apartment worth $93.00 per month.” He was getting a college graduate and the' assistance of the latter’s wife for about $95 per week, all tax deductible to his company, a bargain, he might have thought.
Appellant accepted Orsinger’s offer. In his reliance thereupon, he gave up his prospective employment with the real estate company. Upon payment of two months’ rent, he obtained a release from the owners of the apartment he already had where he sacrificed his redecoration costs of $85. He undertook the expense of moving to Tyler Gardens, and about October 12, 1956, entered upon his duties as resident manager of Tyler Gardens. Some weeks later, without prior notice, appellant received from Orsinger a letter dated November 16, 1956, purporting to terminate appellant’s service as resident manager and further advising “I am relieving you and Pat [appellant’s wife] of any further duties at Tyler Gardens effective this date.”
Against this factual background, appellant’s complaint alleged that the contract was to continue in full force and effect “until the plaintiff completed his law studies as a student duly matriculated in Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D. C., or was obliged to discontinue these studies.” (Emphasis added.)
Appellees rely here solely upon the Statute of Frauds, so I discuss no other point. They insist they may not be charged with liability for damages flowing from the breach since the contract was not to be performed within a year. *580Clearly, they argue, the oral contract was to run for nearly three years.
The agreement as alleged could have been performed in two ways. Under the first clause, the appellees could have continued to employ the appellant throughout his entire three year law school course. They could have continued the promised payments, and appellant with his wife could have rendered the managerial services as originally contemplated by all parties. Surely my colleagues must concede that as so outlined, the first clause could have been fully performed. Any contract must be tested by its terms, and complete performance as demonstrated, could so have been had in accordance with the terms stated here.
But it was not a case simply of a three year commitment by the respective parties. This agreement could have been fully performed in another manner. It was stated in the alternative. My colleagues fail to distinguish between a discharge from liability because of a refusal to perform the first clause, and the possibly complete and timely performance of the second. These parties agreed that appellees would engage the appellant’s services until he “was obliged to discontinue” his law school studies. That eventuality might have depended upon many accounts, scholastic failure, financial strictures, prolonged incapacity because of Army service disability or what not. But it clearly could have occurred within the year.1 Had it so developed, the contract would have been fully performed on both sides, exactly in accordance with its provision, precisely as the parties had agreed. Thus, if performance follows the terms, if it accomplishes what the parties specified, and if that result could have occurred within the year, the requirements of the statute are met. The contract called for performance until appellant “was obliged to discontinue” his studies. This contingency did not defeat the contract; it simply advanced a basis upon which it could be carried out. Obviously the statute appliés only where performance of the contract in accordance with its terms can not occur within the year.
In other words we should examine the contract not in terms of nonliability for its breach but with respect to what was required for its performance. Thus viewed, we see that the parties agreed upon an alternative clause which admitted of performance within the year. Hence the contract was not within the statute.2
Clearly distinguishable are cases where the parties have agreed upon a basis— not for performance — but for defeasance of the contract. Our case of Street v. Maddux, Marshall, Moss & Mallory, 1928, 58 App.D.C. 42, 24 F.2d 617 is illustrative. There the plaintiff in exchange for financial assistance assigned to the defendant the rents from his apartment house and authorized the defendant to pay itself a certain commission out of the rents. The contract was to run for three years unless, within that time, the plaintiff decided to sell the property. Accordingly the right of the plaintiff to sell the subject matter of the contract was not contemplated to be a performance of it, but rather provided a basis for its de-feasance. The owner’s reserved right to terminate brought the contract within the statute.3
1 think the governing principle here to be applied is to be discerned from the Supreme Court’s discussion in the Warner case, supra note 1. There the Court criticized its earlier decision in Packet Co. v. Sickles [5 Wall. 580, 18 L.Ed. 550] which it noted was against the *581weight of authority and not in accord with the terms of the contract itself. Concluding that the clauses considered were true alternatives and that the one did not state a basis for defeasance of the performance called for by the other, the Court said (164 U.S. at page 431, 17 S.Ct. at page 152):
“The terms ‘during the continuance of’ and ‘last so long’ would seem to be precisely equivalent, and the full performance of the contract to be limited alike by the life of the patent and by the life of the boat. It is difficult to understand how the duration of the patent and the duration of the boat differed from one another in their relation to the performance or the determination of the contract; or how a contract to use an aid to navigation upon a boat, so long as she shall last can be distinguished in principle from a contract to support a man, so long as he shall live, which has often been decided, and is generally admitted, not to be within the statute of frauds.” 4
So here. Suppose the questioned allegation had read that the contract was to continue in full force and effect “until the plaintiff might be obliged to discontinue his studies, or until he shall have completed his law studies at Georgetown University Law Center.” Can it be doubted that the parties thus would be seen to have agreed that performance would be deemed complete if continued until the appellant should have been obliged to discontinue his studies? Or can it be doubted that such an eventuality might occur within the year? As the Supreme Court said, such a contract clearly is “generally admitted not to be within the statute of frauds.” The performance being thus complete, we see the parties achieving precisely what they themselves said would constitute performance. There is no element of de-feasance in it, I submit.
Myriad cases support the distinction for which I contend and which, if applied, would take this case out of the statute. It is not to be supposed that certiorari would be granted here and more extended discussion will serve no special purpose. I think summary judgment should not have been granted.

. Warner v. Texas & Pacific Railway, 1896, 164 U.S. 418, 17 S.Ct. 147, 41 L.Ed. 495.

. 2 Corbin, Contracts §§ 445, 446, 454 (1950).

. The Street case and Blue Valley Creamery Co. v. Consolidated Products Co. and Union Oar Advertising Co. v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co., cited by the majority, present typical defeasance situations, and have been so recognized. See, e. g., Mason-Walsh-Atkinson-Kier Co. v. Stubblefield, 9 Cir., 1938, 99 F.2d 735, 737; 2 Corbin, Contracts § 449 (1950).

. As to the same point Corbin states:
“A * * * case that should be disapproved is Packet Co. v. Sickles, 1866, 5 Wall. 580, 72 U.S. 580, 18 L.Ed. 550 to use a contrivance for 12 years on a steamboat if the boat should last that long.” 2 Corbin, Contracts § 446 n. 30.