Irving v. E. Sondheimer Co.

126 So. 2d 401, 1960 La. App. LEXIS 1352
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 1, 1960
DocketNo. 9357
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 126 So. 2d 401 (Irving v. E. Sondheimer Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Irving v. E. Sondheimer Co., 126 So. 2d 401, 1960 La. App. LEXIS 1352 (La. Ct. App. 1960).

Opinion

BOLIN, Judge.

Gus M. Irving brought this suit against E. Sondheimer Company and Tensas Cooperage Company for interest on past due salary owing to him while employed by the defendants for the years 1948, 1949 and 1950. In his suit he admitted that the salary itself had been paid by means of various installments over a period of time while he continued his employment with the defendants. Therefore, his claim is one only for interest on his back salary from the due date until it was paid.

[403]*403The record shows that the plaintiff was employed by the defendants, but that on April 21, 1948, he wrote a letter to Mr. Bertrand W. Cohn, president of the defendant corporations, that he desired to terminate this employment. After receiving this letter, Mr. Cohn wrote the plaintiff stating that he did not intend to accept the plaintiff’s decision to sever his employment, and urged him to reconsider his decision to resign. Following these letters, the employee and employer apparently had several conferences which finally culminated in a mutual agreement for the plaintiff to continue his employment. In order to reduce the verbal employment agreement to writing, Mr. Cohn wrote plaintiff a letter on May 1, 1948, wherein he outlined the conditions with particular reference to the salary to be received by the plaintiff. The conditions of employment insofar as they are pertinent to this case provided that the plaintiff was to receive a guaranteed minimum salary of $10,000 per year. By a similar letter written by Mr. Cohn to the plaintiff on November 9, 1949, the prior agreement was acknowledged to be still in effect and on May 8, 1950, it was again agreed by a letter that the plaintiff was to be paid a minimum salary of $10,000 per year.

Between the dates of May 1, 1948, and December 1, 1950, the plaintiff was paid the total sum of $19,375 as wages, when he should have been paid the sum of $26,664.-64 Dollars in order to be paid the minimum amount of $10,000. per year, according to his agreement with his employer as previously set forth herein. This left a balance due on his salary of $7,291.64, which was paid to him by various installments, beginning in 1950 and being finally paid in full on September 21, 1957.

During all of the time that the above back salary payments were made to the plaintiff he remained in the employ of the defendants and was paid his full salary in addition to the money received by him on the past due salary account.

The facts set forth above are not in dispute. The plaintiff, however, alleges that at various times he requested and demanded of the defendants that they not only pay him his full salary, but that they also pay him interest on same. Plaintiff, claiming that he was due interest at the rate of five per cent per annum on the unpaid monthly salary from the date salary was due until it was paid, calculated such sum to be $3,-151.31. Having made demand on the defendants for the payment of such amount, a suit was instituted in the district court for same. The defendants filed an answer wherein they admitted the correctness of the contract of employment, salary, and the payment of the past due amounts as alleged in the petition, but denied that the plaintiff was entitled to any interest. During the trial in the lower court, it was stipulated by the defendants that they had not paid any interest to the plaintiff. After a trial on the merits, the trial judge concluded that the plaintiff was entitled to some interest, but being unable to determine the exact amount, he rendered judgment in favor of plaintiff for $1,500. From this judgment, the defendants have perfected a suspensive appeal to this court, and the plaintiff has answered the appeal and asked that the judgment below be increased to the total amount prayed for in the original suit.

There are several important issues presented to us for decision. In order to lend continuity to this opinion, we deem it advisable to state each of these issues separately, and to fully develop each before passing to the next. The first such question to be decided is whether or not this plaintiff is entitled to collect interest on past due wages. In this connection, we feel that the following articles of the LSA-Civil Code are pertinent:

Art. 1935. “The damages due for delay in the performance of an obligation to pay money are called interest. The creditor is entitled to these damages without proving any loss, and whatever loss he may have suffered he can recover no more.”
[404]*404Art. 1936. “Interest is of two kinds, conventional and legal; the rate of both is fixed by law in the chapter on loans on interest.”
Art. 1938. “All debts shall bear interest at the rate of five per centum per annum from the time they become due, unless otherwise stipulated.”

The Louisiana Code of Practice also provides that the legal rate of interest is five per cent.

C.P.Art. 554:

“Legal interest rate on debts. — Interest at the rate of five per cent shall be allowed on all debts from the time they become due, unless otherwise stipulated.”

While there has been some uncertainty in our jurisprudence as to whether or not interest is due on certain types of obligations, such as unliquidated open accounts, etc.; it seems to be now well settled that a person is entitled to interest for such things as professional fees, salary, etc. Based upon the above articles of the Civil Code and the Code of Practice, the courts have allowed interest at the rate of five per cent on wages from the time same became due. Hotard v. Fleitas, Inc., La.App.Orleans, 1953, 67 So.2d 345.

Having decided that under proper circumstances a litigant is entitled to interest for past due wages, we now pass to the next question to be discussed herein and that is: Can a separate and distinct suit be brought for interest alone? In this connection counsel for the appellants contends that our courts have uniformly held that such a separate suit for payment of interest can not be maintained. As authority for this position we have been cited to the following cases: Faurie v. Pitot, et al., 2 Mart., O.S. 83; Grennon v. New Orleans Public Service, Inc., Orleans 1931, 17 La.App. 700, 136 So. 309; Merrigan v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, D.C., 43 F.Supp. 209.

It is the contention of the defendants that the cases cited above are authority for the principle of law that interest, when arising ex mora, is in the nature of damages for non-payment of money due by the contract and, therefore, cannot be sued for separately from the principal since it is an accessory to the debt. It is additionally contended that the cases hold that the release of the principal in such cases precludes a separate suit for the interest alone.

We are of the opinion that the cases cited by the defendants are not authority for the proposition that a separate suit may not be maintained for interest. As a matter of fact, the Grennon case specifically points out that the distinctions regarding interest in common law do not exist in Louisiana, because LSA-Civil Code, Article 2925 is applicable to all types of interest. The later case of Liquidation of Canal Bank & Trust Company, 1947, 211 La. 803, 30 So.2d 841, at page 851, had this to say about the Grennon case:

“In a very able opinion written by the Hon. Charles E.

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126 So. 2d 401, 1960 La. App. LEXIS 1352, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/irving-v-e-sondheimer-co-lactapp-1960.