Caldwell v. Missouri State Life Insurance

Hart, J. (after stating the facts). The only issue raised by the appeal is whether on the admitted facts the defendant, Caldwell, was entitled to recover of the defendant on an implied contract the value of the services for which he claims compensation. The defendant does not claim there was any express contract between him and the plaintiff, but he claims that he is entitled to recover from the plaintiff the reasonable value of his services on an implied contract. In discussing the difference between contracts implied from the facts and contracts implied in law, quasi or constructive contracts, in the case of Hertzog v. Hertzog, 29 Penn. St. Repts. 465, the-court said: “But it appears in another place that Blackstone introduces this thought about reason and justice dictating contracts, in .order to embrace, under his definition of an implied contract, another large class of relations, which involve no intention to contract at all, though they may be treated as if they did. Thus, whenever, not our variant notions of reason and justice, but the common sense and common justice of the country, and therefore the common law or statute, law, impose upon any one a duty, irrespective of contract, and allow it to be enforced by a Qontract remedy, he calls this a case of implied contract. Thus out of torts grows the duty of compensation, and in many cases the tort may be waived, and the action brought in assumpsit. It is quite apparent, therefore, that radically different relations are classified under the same term, and this must often give rise to indistinctness of thought. And this was not at all necessary; for we have another, well-authorized technical term exactly adapted to the office of making the true distinction. The latter class, are merely constructive contracts, while the former are truly implied ones. In one case the contract is mere fiction, a form imposed in order to adapt the case to a given remedy; in the other it is a fact legitimately inferred. In one, the intention is diregarded; in the other, it is ascertained and enforced. In one, the duty defines the contract; in the other, the contract defines the duty. ’ ’ It is manifest that no contract can be implied from the facts in this case. Caldwell had resigned his position under the plaintiff and did not during the time he performed the services in question -act for the plaintiff. He presented his charges against the president of the company to the directors who resided in Missouri, and they in turn presented the same to the stockholders at their annual meeting. The stockholders declined to take notice of the charges, and re-elected Hoyt as a director, and on the same day the hoard of directors re-elected him as president. This negatives the idea that the plaintiff accepted the services of Caldwell, or realized that they were deriving any benefit therefrom. Caldwell was not called upon by the corporation to perform the services in question. It not only did not accept his services, but did not even acquiesce in his performance of them. After being turned down by the stockholders, Caldwell presented his charges to the superintendent of insurance and thereby caused the superintendent to demand and receive Hoyt’s resignation. The corporation had no voice in the matter and the action of Caldwell was purely voluntary. We can not perceive how the corporation could be said to have made an implied contract with him by accepting the benefits resulting from his services, which it had no power to reject. Hence no contract is raised by implication from the facts to pay Caldwell what his services are reasonably worth. But counsel for the defendant claim that he is entitled to recover on a contract implied in law. There is nothing in the record from which this relation can be implied. There is no general equitable principle that one who receives the benefit of another’s work against his will is liable to pay for it. There is a large class of cases where suits are brought to recover money paid by mistake, or where it has been obtained by fraud. In such cases the law implies a promise to repay the money. In the application of a like principle a recovery has also been allowed where necessaries had been furnished an insane person, or neglected wife, or child. So in the application of the principle this court allowed a recovery to a physician who performed an operation on an unconscious person in an effort to save his life. Cotnam v. Wisdom, 83 Ark. 601. The court said that the law implied a contract to pay a reasonable fee to the physician because the unconscious person was in the same situation as persons incapable of contracting by reason of being infants, or insane persons. The recovery is allowed in such cases on the ground that the services are necessary to save or preserve the life of the principal. However, it can have no application in the case at bar. There is another class of cases where the law prescribes the rights and liabilities of persons who have not entered into any contract with each other, but between whom circumstnces have arisen which make it just and equitable that one should have a right, and that the other should be subject to a liability similar to the rights and liabilities in certain cases of express contracts. Thus if one has obtained money from another through the medium of oppression, imposition, extortion, or deceit, or by the commission of a trespass, such money may be recovered back; for the law implies a promise from the wrongdoer to restore it to the rightful owner, although it is obvious that this is the very opposite of his intention. Dusenbury v. Speir, 77 N. Y. 144. In that case the court likened constructive contracts of this nature to constructive trusts in a court of equity. In 13 C. J. 224, the learned author said: “.Among the instances óf quasi or constructive contracts may be mentioned cases in which one person has received money which another person ought to have received, and which the latter is allowed to recover from the former in an action of assumpsit for money had and received, or money received to the use of plaintiff, cases in which one person has been compelled to pay money which another ought to have paid, and which he is allowed to recover from the latter in an action of assumpsit for money paid to his use; cases of account stated, from which the law implies a promise which will support an action of as-sumpsit; judgments on which an action of assumpsit or debt may be maintained, according to the circumstances, because of a promise to pay implied by law; cases in which an obligation to pay money is imposed by statute; cases where a person wrongfully appropriating property to his own use becomes, liable to pay the owners the reasonable value thereof; cases in which a person fails to deliver specific property and becomes liable for the money value thereof; cases where one party wrongfully compels another to render him valuable services, and a promise to pay their value is implied; cases where one man has obtained from another by oppression, extortion, or deceit, or by the commission of a trespass; cases where necessaries have been furnished to a wife wrongfully abandoned by her husband, although he has given notice that he will not be responsible;-and cases in which the husband is permitted to recover the wife’s funeral expenses from her estate.” None of the cases referred to are similar to the case at bar. Neither the law alone, nor natural equity would require the plaintiff to pay the defendant for his services in the present case. Caldwell was under no duty to act in the premises. He was a mere volunteer, and did not act from any sense of duty imposed by law or by his relationship to the plaintiff. He may have been acting as he thought for the public good, but this fact did not make the plaintiff liable for his services. He was under no duty to perform them, and the plaintiff, neither by words, act, nor conduct, recognized, acquiesced in, or accepted his services as beneficial to it. There was no duty performed by Caldwell which would define the contract, nor was there any contract implied by the conduct of the plaintiff. The mere fact that Caldwell voluntarily preferred charges against the president of the plaintiff company, and thereby caused his removal, was not sufficient upon which to predicate a recovery in this case, and it could make no difference that his action resulted in a benefit to the plaintiff company. It follows that the decree must be affirmed.