Contract, What constitutes, Validity, Construction. Release. Words, "Make it right."
Where a building contractor, in consideration of the signing and delivering by a laborer to him of a release discharging him from all demands arising from certain personal injuries which the laborer had sustained because of negligence of such contractor, agrees to pay to the laborer $300 and, if the laborer is not able to resume work at the end of six weeks, to "make it right with" him, and the laborer signs and delivers the release and receives the $300, a contract is made which is not void for indefiniteness, and the words, "make it right," may be found to mean that in the contingency named the laborer shall have fair compensation for his injuries paid to him in money exceeding the $300 already paid to him.
HAMMOND, J.
Upon the evidence the jury properly might have found that by the understanding of Brennan, the plaintiff's intestate, and Linscott, the $300 was not the only consideration for the receipt, but that in a certain contingency, namely, Brennan's failure to recover fully within six weeks from the time of the settlement, then Linscott was to "make it right" with him; that he did not recover within the time named, and that each defendant is bound by the promise.
The jury might have found further that under the circumstances the words "make it right" meant that in the contingency named the plaintiff's intestate should have fair compensation paid to him in money for the injuries suffered by him by reason of the accident and that said compensation would exceed the three hundred dollars paid to him. The promise is not void on the ground that it is too indefinite. Juries are constantly solving such problems. The case for the plaintiff is much stronger than that in Silver v. Graves, 210 Mass. 26. See also Noble v. Joseph Burnett Co. 208 Mass. 75. Under the terms of the report there must be a new trial, and it is
So ordered.