Calavartenos v. Southeastern Raw Fur Merchants of Louisiana, Inc.

179 So. 46, 189 La. 94, 1938 La. LEXIS 1155
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 10, 1938
DocketNo. 34530.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 179 So. 46 (Calavartenos v. Southeastern Raw Fur Merchants of Louisiana, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Calavartenos v. Southeastern Raw Fur Merchants of Louisiana, Inc., 179 So. 46, 189 La. 94, 1938 La. LEXIS 1155 (La. 1938).

Opinion

HIGGINS, Justice.

Plaintiff instituted this action against the defendants, a New York corporation and a Louisiana corporation, in solido, to recover the sum of $2,500, for commissions said to have been earned under an alleged verbal contract of employment, and commissions he claims he would have earned under said contract if fhe defendants had not summarily and without cause dismissed him from their services. He prayed for a writ of attachment on the ground that one of the defendants was a nonresident and the other possessed no property within the jurisdiction of the court, except raw furs, which were being rapidly shipped out of the state.

The nonresident corporation filed an exception to the jurisdiction of the court ratione personae, which was later sustained by the trial judge.

The defendant resident corporation filed an application with the district judge to have the seizure reduced to the sum of $3,000, which request was promptly granted, and also filed a rule to show cause why the attachment should not be dissolved. The *97 judge a quo recalled the writ on the ground that the attorney for the plaintiff had signed the affidavit attached to his application for the writ when his client was present and should have signed it himself.

Plaintiff took a suspensive appeal from the judgment but did not perfect it, and later obtained an alias writ seizing the sum of $3,000. The defendant resident corporation then filed a rule to dissolve this writ, but the trial court sustained the seizure.

The defendant resident corporation answered, denying that the plaintiff had been employed under a verbal contract on a commission basis, as a fur buyer, and averring that he had been employed as a helper and had been paid in full for his services. In re-convention, the defendant prayed for judgment against the plaintiff for the sum of $2,961, as damages for the illegal issuance of the writ of attachment, alleging that the plaintiff was in bad faith and had brought the suit maliciously. The damages were, itemized as follows: $250 for attorney’s fees for dissolving the writ; $1,000 for damages to its credit; $500 for loss of trade, services, worry, and distress; $275 for loss of time of defendant’s ' agent, caused by the seizure; and $936, representing profits which it would have earned by purchasing a certain lot of skins.

Their was judgment in favor of the defendants, dismissing the plaintiff’s suit, and judgment in favor of the defendant resident corporation, as plaintiff in reconvention, against the plaintiff, as respondent in reconventional demand, for the sum of $2,-700.

The plaintiff has appealed.

The record shows that the plaintiff was a fur grader and buyer with ten years’ experience in the state of Louisiana; that the trapping season, under the law and regulations of the Conservation Department, was from December 1 through January 31; that the defendant resident corporation, Southeastern Raw Fur Merchants of Louisiana, Inc., was duly incorporated under the laws of this state in October 1934, and its officers and stockholders were the same as those of the nonresident or New York corporation; that the entire stock of merchandise of the Louisiana corporation was sold to the New York corporation; that the Louisiana corporation, during the 1934-35 fur season engaged in buying skins but did not do so during the 1935-36 season; that about November 23, 1936, the plaintiff went to the office of the Louisiana corporation in the city of New Orleans and asked Samuel Rose, president, for employment; that on November 27, 1936, Mr. Rose authorized the Conservation Department to issue the plaintiff a permit to buy skins under the corporation’s nonresident fur dealer’s license for the 1936-37 season, “as a member of the Southeastern Raw Fur Merchants of Louisiana, Inc.,” the defendant corporation; that on November 28, 1936, Mr. Rose had the plaintiff, with the assistance of David Dwoskin, office manager of the corporation, fill out an application with the American Employers Insurance Company of Boston for a bond for the sum of $2,000 to secure the corporation against any loss, damage, or expense sustained by reason of the plaintiff’s default in handling the *99 funds and merchandise belonging to it; that the plaintiff made several trips with David Dwoskin, a young man from New York, who was employed on a salary basis as manager of the Louisiana corporation, for the purpose of buying furs; that they were successful in purchasing skins on most of the trips but on a few occasions they were not; that various sums of money aggregating $90 were paid to the plaintiff during that period of time; that on December 22, 1936, Samuel Rose received a letter from his office to the effect that plaintiffs bond had been apparently accepted, because a rider for the policy on him had arrived and was placed in the safe, and that the writer hoped that plaintiff could get quantities of skunk skins at- advantageous prices; that plaintiff claimed he was summarily dismissed from the company’s employment on December 22, for making claim for commissions; and after making amicable demand, through his counsel, on December 23, 1936, for his alleged earned and prospective commissions, the present suit was instituted on December 30, 1936.

The plaintiff testified that he had been employed by Samuel Rose, president of the defendant corporation under a verbal contract as a fur buyer on a commission basis of 5 per cent, on the gross purchase price of small skins and 7 per cent, on the larger ones, and that he had recéivéd various cash payments aggregating $90 on account of the commissions which were to be settled at the end of the 1936-37 season. In corroboration of his testimony, he pointed to the certificate of the Conservation Commission,' the application for the bond, and the letter of the defendant’s representative to Samuel Rose, and also to the fact that it was admitted that he made several trips with Mr. Dwoskin to purchase furs for the defendant corporation.

On cross-examination he was confronted with four receipts from the period of November 28, 1936, through December 16, 1936, tending to show that he had acknowledged the various sums in full settlement of all commissions due to date. His explanation was that the statement in each receipt that it was to cover commissions in full to date had been added after he signed the receipts.

Samuel Rose testified that it was his intention to employ the plaintiff on a commission basis as a fur buyer, but that it was the policy of his corporation to do so only by written contract with the employee bonded, for the reason that fur buyers must be intrusted with large sums of money and valuable furs; that he agreed with the plaintiff to give him odd jobs, in order to enable him to earn some money pending the issuance of the bond by the fidelity company and signing the formal written contract, and that the amount to be paid for his services was left to the discretion of Mr, Rose; and that the receipts for the commissions in full to date contained that stipulation at the time the plaintiff signed them. His evidence was corroborated by the testimony of George Carlson, a former employee of the defendant corporation, who stated that David Dwoskin read the receipts to the plaintiff before he signed them, and no complaint was ever made by him.

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17 So. 2d 495 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1944)

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Bluebook (online)
179 So. 46, 189 La. 94, 1938 La. LEXIS 1155, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/calavartenos-v-southeastern-raw-fur-merchants-of-louisiana-inc-la-1938.