Overman v. Bright

VALLÉE, J. Appeal by plaintiff from a judgment for defendants in a suit for a declaration that the parties were partners and for an accounting. As an alternative, plaintiff prayed for the reasonable value of services rendered.

[516]Defendant Elvin M. Bright, referred to as defendant, doing business as Bright Laboratories, ivas engaged in the development and manufacture of plastics. The court found there was no partnership; any services rendered by plaintiff were performed as an employee of defendant; defendant had terminated plaintiff’s employment for cause; and plaintiff had been fully compensated for all services rendered.

Plaintiff first asserts the court erred in excluding evidence of similar transactions between defendant and other persons. He argues that the principal issue at the trial was whether a partnership existed between plaintiff and defendant and that evidence of similar transactions between defendant and other persons was relevant to that issue. The partnership at bar was alleged to be oral and to have been entered into about January 1953. The evidence excluded was to the effect that in 1949 defendant had entered into an oral agreement of partnership with one Grossman and that later he had denied the agreement, and to the effect that defendant had promised one McDonald an interest in defendant’s laboratories.

The evidence was properly excluded. The question here was whether defendant had entered into a partnership with plaintiff. The proffered evidence of defendant’s conduct with others had no relevancy on that issue. In Lande v. Southern Calif. Freight Lines, 85 Cal.App.2d 416 [193 P.2d 144], Mr. Justice McComb, speaking for the court, stated (p. 422) :

“Did the trial court commit prejudicial error in excluding evidence of contracts entered into between defendant and other persons during the period the contracts between plaintiff and defendant were negotiated, and which other contracts were similar to the contracts involved in the present litigation?

“This question must be answered in the negative. It is the general rule that in the absence of a common plan, scheme, habit or usage, contracts between different parties have no probative value in the consideration and interpretation of other and different contracts even though one of the parties may be common to both. [Citations.] . . .

“ [P. 423.] Applying the foregoing rule to the facts here involved it is apparent that the trial court properly excluded the questioned evidence. The other contracts offered were not material in determining the nature of the transaction between plaintiff and defendant. Since there was an absence of any claim that there was a common plan, scheme, habit or usage