Zinn v. Bernic Construction, Inc.

99 Misc. 2d 510, 416 N.Y.S.2d 725, 1979 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2270
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedMay 16, 1979
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 99 Misc. 2d 510 (Zinn v. Bernic Construction, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Zinn v. Bernic Construction, Inc., 99 Misc. 2d 510, 416 N.Y.S.2d 725, 1979 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2270 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1979).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE CURT

Edwin Kassoff, J.

The plaintiff commenced this action to recover commissions allegedly owed to him by defendant while he was in its employ, and for additional commissions owed him for modified contracts. Defendant counterclaims for alleged loans and advances made to the plaintiff.

Plaintiff was employed as a salesman by defendant corporation from April 1, 1971 to September 30, 1976. His duties included rendering estimates and entering into contracts for building and general construction jobs on behalf of the defendant. Plaintiff alleges that throughout the period of his employment defendant agreed to pay plaintiff for his services a sum of money equal to 10% (or a lesser percentage if otherwise expressly agreed to as to a specific job) of the amount of any contract accepted by the defendant as a result of sales and contracts consummated through plaintiff’s efforts as a salesman.

Plaintiff alleges that through his efforts he consummated contracts between defendant and sundry customers whereby, and pursuant to his agreement with the defendant, plaintiff earned commissions in the amount of $56,647. At trial, it was stipulated that plaintiff has received partial payments totaling $40,595, leaving a balance allegedly due plaintiff of $16,052.

Defendant claims that its payment to plaintiff was the total amount due him and that defendant never agreed to pay a 10% commission for each contract. During the trial, the plaintiff stipulated that he owed defendant $1,600 for work, labor and services. Thus, the amount of plaintiff’s claim in issue is $14,452, plus any additional commissions due plaintiff on modified contracts.

[512]*512Defendant contends that the alleged oral employment agreement was not to be performed within one year and is therefore unenforceable pursuant to section 5-701 of the General Obligations Law. The court finds the defense of the Statute of Frauds to be without merit and rejects it. The employment agreement was one of an indefinite hiring, terminable at will, and hence not within the statute, since it might be performed within one year. (See Rathbone v Mion, 282 App Div 797; Posner v Precision Shapes, 271 App Div 435; Dreifus v Rothstein, 51 NYS2d 573.)

The only issue remaining is whether defendant had agreed to pay plaintiff a 10% commission for each contract that he obtained for defendant. If the court decides in the affirmative, plaintiff is entitled to a judgment of $14,452, together with an accounting of all sums of money earned by defendant as a result of modification of contracts which he obtained.

The court is confronted with a purported oral agreement between the parties made without the presence of witnesses, with each party making contrary statements as to the nature of the agreement. This type of dilemma gives rise to an ideal situation for the use of a polygraph examination.

Accordingly, the court requested that the attorneys for all parties confer privately with their clients and determine whether the plaintiff and defendant and their respective attorneys would enter into a stipulated agreement whereby the plaintiff and the defendant by Slavko Bernic, president of the defendant corporation and the party who entered into the employment contract with the plaintiff, would each undergo a polygraph examination conducted by Victor C. Kaufman, with the results to be admitted as some evidence in chief for the court’s consideration along with all other evidence. The court further instructed that under no circumstances were the attorneys or their clients permitted to signify to the court which party, if any, withheld consent.

The parties and their respective attorneys conferred outside of the presence of the court. When they appeared before the court, the parties individually, as well as their respective attorneys, stipulated and agreed that the plaintiff and Slavko Bernic would undergo a polygraph examination, with the results to be admitted as some evidence in chief for the court’s consideration, along with all other evidence.

Polygraph examinations were conducted by Victor C. Kaufman, founder and chief examiner for the New York Lie [513]*513Detection Laboratories. Mr. Kaufman received his LL.D. degree from St. John’s University School of Law in 1939 and served for 23 years as commander of a detective squad in the New York City Police Department. He is a member of the American Polygraph Association, a past president of the Polygraph Examiners of New York State, Inc., has been licensed as a polygraph examiner in Vermont and South Carolina, and has personally conducted more than 10,000 polygraph examinations. Mr. Kaufman used a four pen Stoelting Polygraph, which operates on the theory that one who knowingly lies undergoes physiological changes in pulse rate, respiration, blood pressure and the skin’s resistance to electricity.

The polygraph examiner poses questions of three types: those deemed "irrelevant” since the testee is expected to experience little or no stress in responding, e.g., "Is your name John Paul?”; those deemed "control” since the testee experiences a heightened physiological reaction by denying a broad inquiry into past activity, e.g., "Have you ever stolen anything?” — "Have you ever lied?”; and questions concerning the event in issue, which should be of greater importance to the testee than the control questions, so that a lying testee is expected to experience a physiological reaction in excess of the control reaction, e.g., "Did you lie on the first of May?” (See Reid & Inbau, Truth and Deception: the Polygraph ["Lie-Detector”] Technique [2d], pp 27-31.) Physiological changes are recorded on a chart by means of sensors connected to the testee’s person. The accuracy of the polygraph device in distinguishing a lie from the truth is directly related to the examiner’s expertise in fixing the scope of the examination, phrasing test questions, determining the question sequence, and recognizing significant recorded changes. Furthermore, the examiner must be trained to detect the symptoms that indicate a testee is psychotic, feebleminded or a pathological liar, since in these circumstances polygraph results decline in reliability. (See Reid & Inbau, supra, pp 247-250, 303-307; McCormick, Evidence [2d ed], § 207; O’Connor, "That’s the Man”: A Sobering Study of Eyewitness Identification and the Polygraph, 49 St. John’s L Rev 1, 14, n 48; Skolnick, Scientific Theory and Scientific Evidence: An Analysis of Lie-Detection, 70 Yale LJ 694, 696-714.) The court is satisfied that the examiner who administered the polygraph examination used in this case was indeed well qualified and competent to do so.

[514]*514As early as 1923, in Frye v United States (293 F 1013), the results of a Marston systolic blood pressure deception test were barred from admission into evidence on the basis that the testing device had not gained "general scientific acceptance.” The point of view established by the Frye standard— viz., that "the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs” (Frye v United States, supra, p 1014) — was adopted by the New York Court of Appeals 15 years later in People v Forte (279 NY 204) and remains the law in this State. (See, e.g., People v Leone, 25 NY2d 511; Sowa v Looney, 23 NY2d 329; People v Guerin, 47 AD2d 788; People v Black, 86 Misc 2d 909; People v Hargrove, 80 Misc 2d 317;

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Bluebook (online)
99 Misc. 2d 510, 416 N.Y.S.2d 725, 1979 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2270, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/zinn-v-bernic-construction-inc-nysupct-1979.