Williams v. Goodyear Aircraft Corp.

85 N.E.2d 601, 84 Ohio App. 113, 39 Ohio Op. 126, 1948 Ohio App. LEXIS 699
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 9, 1948
Docket3940
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 85 N.E.2d 601 (Williams v. Goodyear Aircraft Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Goodyear Aircraft Corp., 85 N.E.2d 601, 84 Ohio App. 113, 39 Ohio Op. 126, 1948 Ohio App. LEXIS 699 (Ohio Ct. App. 1948).

Opinion

Hunsicker, J.

This case arises as an appeal and cross-appeal on questions of law from an order of the Common Pleas Court of Summit county, sustaining in part and overruling in part a demurrer filed by the cross-appellant, Goodyear Aircraft Corporation, to the petition of the plaintiffs, Weldon M. Williams and others.

Williams and others commenced an action against their former employer, Goodyear Aircraft Corporation, hereinafter called corporation, to recover, in their own behalf and in behalf of all persons similarly situated, a money judgment under a claim for time spent by them in going from the entrance to the corporation property to the place where the employees rang their clock cards to begin the day’s work, and the time spent in leaving the corporation premises after they had rung the clock cards at the end of the day’s work.

After this petition was filed, 213 additional employees, by leave of court, were made parties plaintiff and sought relief on the same claim as the original plaintiffs.

The corporation filed a demurrer to the petition claiming that (1) the petition did not state a cause of action and (2) there was an apparent misjoinder of parties plaintiff.

The trial court sustained the demurrer to the claim that the petition did not state a cause of action and overruled the demurrer to the second claim of misjoinder of parties plaintiff.

This appeal on questions of law has been taken by all of the plaintiffs from the order made against them, *115 and a cross-appeal has been perfected by the corporation from the order with respect to misjoinder of parties plaintiff.

The plaintiffs alleged that this action did not arise under the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act and was not a claim for minimum wages, unpaid overtime, or liquidated damages arising by reason of nonpayment of minimum wages or overtime compensation. The plaintiffs did say that their claim was for compensation on defendant’s promise implied in law to pay plaintiffs for all time spent in discharging plaintiffs’ duty to the defendant which was necessarily incident to the day’s work.

The plaintiffs alleged that they were former employees of the corporation, but were no longer employed by it. The plaintiffs alleged further that, for the entire period covered by plaintiffs’ employment, the corporation was under contract with the United States Government on a cost-plus fixed-fee agreement, in which contract, as a part.of the labor cost charged by the corporation to the United States Government, the time of plaintiffs and all others employed by the corporation in going to and from the entrance to the time clock for purposes of ringing in and out of work was used as a basis for computation of the corporation profits on its government contract.

There was no direct, allegation that the plaintiffs, and other employees, for whom they claimed compensation, had not been paid for the time spent in the corporation employment after ringing in and before ringing out at the time clock. The only inference that can necessarily follow is that they had been so paid, and that this claim was for additional compensation.

The plaintiffs have disclaimed, in their petition, briefs and oral arguments, any intention to ask for ■compensation under the so-called portal-to-portal *116 cases. Plaintiffs, in their brief and in oral argument, also specifically deny that they seek compensation based on a contract implied in fact, but do say that their claim is based on a common-law doctrine which in law implied a promise to compensate the employees for time spent on the corporation premises, over and beyond that compensation which these employees received for work done between the period of ringing in and ringing out at the time clock. We direct our attention, then, to this claim of the plaintiffs.

All true contracts grow out of the intentions of the parties, and it is essential that there be a meeting of the minds in an implied as well as an express contract. Columbus, H. V. & T. Ry. Co. v. Gaffney, 65 Ohio St., 104, 61 N. E., 152; Price v. Cleveland Trust Co., 45 Ohio Law Abs., 606, 68 N. E. (2d), 133.

“Contracts are express when their terms are stated by the parties. Contracts are often said to be implied when their terms are not so stated. The distinction is not one of legal effect, but in the way in which mutual assent is manifested.” 1 Williston on Contracts (Rev. Ed.), Section 3.

Under the common law, all rights enforced by actions ex contractu, such as actions of assumpsit, were regarded as based on contract. Some of those rights were created not by mutual assent but were imposed by law.

' Mutual assent was not a necessary element to establish the rights, so they were said to have arisen from contracts implied in law. In this class of cases the notion of a contract is fictitious, for there are none of the elements of a contract necessarily present. As a result, there has developed considerable confusion in the decisions through the use, by the courts, of the words “implied contract” to designate what is not a real contract.

*117 The term now used to describe obligations enforcibleby an action ex contractu where there has been no-mutual assent is “quasi contract.” 17 Corpus Juris Secundum, Contracts, Section 6; 1 Restatement of Contracts, Section 5.

It is necessary, then, to realize the difference between the way in which rights arise under real contracts and the way they arise under quasi contracts,, and to distinguish the legal relations created by them.

Quasi contracts developed from the desire of the-law to bring about justice without any reference to-the intention of the parties, and sometimes contrary to their intention. The principle upon which they are-founded is prevention of unjust enrichment, and the-remedy provided is by an action as though it were upon a contract. 12 American Jurisprudence, Contracts,. Section 6.

Typical examples of quasi-contract rights are the-right of recovery for money paid by mistake, the right of obtaining payment for the value of property or services obtained by fraud, the right to recover money expended by a political subdivision for the support of paupers whose legal settlements are in a different subdivision and the right to recover the value of necessities furnished an infant or married woman.

The law does not recognize the coexistence of a-quasi contract and an express contract covering the-same subject. Cale v. Kiner, Exr., 44 Ohio Law Abs., 407, 63 N. E. (2d), 839; 17 Corpus Juris Secundum, Contracts, Section 6; 3 Page on Contracts (2 Ed.),. Section 1438.

The plaintiffs alleged that they were former employees of the corporation, which in effect was an allegation that a contract of employment had been entered' into between the plaintiffs and the corporation.

A contract includes not only the terms set forth in- *118

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Bluebook (online)
85 N.E.2d 601, 84 Ohio App. 113, 39 Ohio Op. 126, 1948 Ohio App. LEXIS 699, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-goodyear-aircraft-corp-ohioctapp-1948.