Court Opinion

ID: 9486880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:03:22.175016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:59.689863
License: Public Domain

BECKER, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I join in Part IV of the opinion of the court. However, I dissent from Part III for two reasons. First, I believe that the majority has construed the requirements of Delaware’s statute of frauds much too rigorously; a memorandum need not be as complete, precise and detailed as the majority suggests to satisfy the statute. Second, the majority has compounded this error by conflating with the statute of frauds Delaware’s strict jurisprudence on employment-at-will unnecessarily raising the barrier to suit even higher.
I agree with appellants that the statute of frauds is fully satisfied here by the contract proposal written in Zeccola’s longhand and by the other written documents. All that the statute of frauds requires is that the writings reasonably identify the subject matter of the contract. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 131(a) (1981) (quoted by majority opinion at 1239). The writing need not set out all the details of the contract; only the “essential terms” of unperformed promises must be stated. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 131(c) (quoted by majority, opinion at 1239). Exhibit “B2,” written in Zeccola’s own hand, sets out all the unperformed promises of the defendants: an 18-month term of employment, a salary of roughly $647.00 per week, health insurance, and the payment of commissions.1 Although Exhibit *1247B2 was not signed by Zeccola, signed payroll cards, as in the Restatement example, see majority opinion at 1240, referred to the same agreement as Exhibit B2, evidenced by the fact that they contained essentially the same terms.2 Thus, the signatures on the payroll cards apply to Exhibit B2 which contained the essential 18 month term of employment.
In short, the purpose of the statute of frauds is to require objective evidence of a contract in order to prevent and avoid fraud so that parties and witnesses cannot just make up claims out of whole cloth. See Quillen v. Sayers, 482 A.2d 744, 747 (Del.Supr.1984). The statutory purpose was satisfied here. The statute does not require a comprehensive memorial. The remaining details may be fleshed out (and would have been here) by the testimony and by documents other than those signed by the “party sought to be charged.” Only at that point does Delaware’s presumption in favor of employment at will become relevant in evaluating whether, based on all of the evidence, defendant breached the agreement.

. The law does not require writings on points not in dispute. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 131(c).

. The differences in pay between the payroll cards and Exhibit B2, see majority opinion at 1241, were so insignificant that they do not cast doubt on the conclusion that the writings referred to the same agreement.