Opinion
Decided January 6, 1920.
A contract by a partnership to employ a workman for a definite time is not terminated, as a matter of law, if after they cease to provide him with work, he enters the employ of a corporation then organized by the members of the partnership.
ASSUMPSIT. Trial by jury. The defendants employed the plaintiff in March, 1917, to work for a year. He worked under this agreement until May when they sold their business to a corporation which they organized to carry it on, and he went to work for the corporation and was discharged in November. Transferred by Sawyer, J., from the January term, 1919, of the superior court, on the plaintiff's exception to a directed verdict. Other facts relevant to the exception are given in the opinion.
Alvin F. Wentworth (by brief and orally), for the plaintiff.
Burleigh Adams (Mr. Burleigh orally), for the defendants.
The mere fact the plaintiff went to work for the corporation when the defendants ceased to have work for him to do, did not terminate the contract he made with them as a matter of law; and as there was evidence tending to prove that he had an understanding with them that going to work for the corporation should not affect his rights under the contract, and that he was discharged without cause, the case should have been submitted to the jury.
Exception sustained.
All concurred.