Baxley Veneer & Clete Co. v. Maddox

Citations: 401 S.E.2d 282; 198 Ga. App. 235; 1990 Ga. App. LEXIS 1592Docket: A90A1525, A90A1526

Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia; November 21, 1990; Georgia; State Appellate Court

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In the case of Baxley Veneer, Clete Company et al. v. Maddox, the Court of Appeals of Georgia addressed a dispute stemming from an oral agreement between the appellee and Horace Corbett, the former president of Corbett Plywood Corporation. The primary appeal contested a jury verdict in favor of the appellee, who claimed breach of contract and wrongful termination after being fired shortly after Corbett's death. The appellee asserted that Corbett promised him employment until the age of 65, which he accepted despite concerns about job security due to his age. 

The appellants argued that the contract was unenforceable under the Statute of Frauds, which requires certain agreements to be in writing if they are not to be performed within one year. Although a witness testified that Corbett made the promise during a dinner meeting, no written evidence of the contract was presented at trial. The court noted that the Statute of Frauds could be bypassed if there was sufficient part performance of the contract indicating that not enforcing it would be fraudulent. The appellants contended that the appellee's actions did not constitute part performance that would exempt the agreement from the Statute of Frauds. However, the court found no error in allowing the jury to consider the case, as there was evidence that the appellee managed the mill for over two-and-a-half years following the agreement, suggesting that his employment was not merely terminable at will. The jury ultimately awarded damages to the appellee, including attorney fees.

The determination of whether certain actions constituted part performance of a contract was ruled to be a factual question, referencing Smith v. Cox and Stolz v. Shulman. The denial of the appellants' motion for directed verdict regarding this issue was deemed appropriate. Additionally, regarding the claim for attorney fees and litigation expenses, although the appellee did not initially request these in the complaint, he included them in a pretrial order not signed by the appellants’ counsel or the trial judge. After initially granting a directed verdict in favor of the appellants on the attorney fees issue, the trial judge later decided to permit the jury to consider the evidence for this claim. The court emphasized that pretrial orders should be interpreted broadly to encompass all relevant contested issues. The appellants were aware of the attorney fees claim due to the pretrial order, which was unsigned due to a judge assignment change.

Questions of bad faith, stubborn litigiousness, and related expenses are typically jury issues. For a bad faith award of attorney fees in contract actions, the misconduct must pertain to the contract or the transactions leading to the cause of action. Given the brief interval between the appellee's termination and Corbett's death, there was sufficient evidence for the jury to potentially find bad faith in the appellants' actions. Consequently, the denial of the directed verdict on the attorney fees claim was upheld.

Lastly, the appellants argued the trial court erred by not granting their proposed jury instructions regarding part performance. They contended that mere employment actions, such as starting a job or relocating, do not meet the criteria for part performance to exempt a multi-year oral employment contract from the Statute of Frauds. The requested charges were consistent with legal precedents. However, the judge instructed the jury that an oral contract not to be performed within a year could be enforceable if there was performance accepted by the other party or if the part performance indicated a contract's existence.

Appellee argued that his actions, including leaving his previous job and working continuously at Corbett Plywood for about two-and-a-half years without taking a vacation, constituted part performance that would exempt an oral contract from the Statute of Frauds. The trial court's refusal to instruct the jury on this matter, despite the charges being relevant and legally accurate, was deemed erroneous and led to a reversal of the judgment in Case No. A90A1525. 

Appellants challenged the trial court's instruction regarding acquiescence or silence as potentially amounting to an admission. They contended that their lack of response to appellee's unemployment benefits application did not imply that he had been terminated without cause or that any employment contract existed until age 65. The court agreed that the instruction was not supported by evidence and introduced irrelevant issues, constituting another error.

Furthermore, the trial court permitted appellee to present character testimony from two witnesses regarding his honesty and truthfulness, which appellants objected to. The court found this testimony irrelevant to the central issue of the case—whether the contract was unenforceable under the Statute of Frauds—thus violating the general prohibition against character evidence in civil cases.

Lastly, appellee's request for a jury charge regarding the nature of contracts between employers and overseers was denied. The court found no error in this refusal, as there was no evidence that appellee was hired as an "overseer" under the relevant statute. The judgment was reversed in Case No. A90A1525 and affirmed in Case No. A90A1526, with both judges concurring.