Philip E. Gray, Inc. v. Gray

Collins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from a judgment in the amount of $7,797.12 rendered against the appellant, Philip E. Gray, Incorporated, and in favor of the appellee, Margaret W. Gray. The suit was in assumpsit for services rendered by the appellee, plaintiff, to the appellant, defendant, in that amount. The case comes to this Court on the denial of the appellant’s motion for a directed verdict and on the refusal of appellant’s motion for a judgment N. O. V. Of course, in deciding whether this demurrer prayer and motion should have been granted, we will resolve all conflicts in the evidence in favor of the appellant and assume the truth of all evidence and all inferences which may naturally and legitimately be deduced therefrom which tend to support appellant’s claim.

The evidence will therefore be recited in a light most favorable to the appellant. Stannard v. McCool, 198 Md. 609, 610 , 84 A. 2d 862, 863 , and cases there cited. Margaret W. Gray, the appellee, testified that she and Philip E. Gray were married at Roanoke, Virginia, on August 3, 1935. They lived in Roanoke for three years and then moved to Charlottesville and lived there until ²⁶² they were divorced in 1947.

Mr. Gray was in the coin machine business in Virginia and about 1942 transferred his operations to St. Mary’s County, Maryland. The Grays have two children, a girl fifteen and a boy nine years of age at the time of the trial. Prior to the divorce an agreement was reached by the parties that Mr. Gray was to pay her fifty dollars per month for herself and two hundred dollars for the children. The children went to live with Mrs. Gray’s parents in Roanoke and Mrs. Gray went in training in Charlottesville to become a nurse.

When the boy became ill Mrs. Gray went back to Roanoke to take care of the children. Mr. Gray kept in touch with his former wife and his children. Some time before June, 1948, Mr. Gray suggested that they try to “make a go of it again” and that they remarry. On the way back to Maryland, Mrs. Gray told him at Union Station in Washington that she and the children would not go back unless she and he were married.

Mr. Gray, however, persuaded her to go back to St. Mary’s County with the promise of marriage some time in the future. In July, 1948, they all returned to St. Mary’s County to a house in Patuxent Park, where Mr. Gray had his slot machines stored in the basement. In this house one room was used as an office, one room was occupied by two boys who worked for Mr. Gray, and the family occupied a living room, kitchen, and three upstairs bedrooms. Mr. and Mrs. Gray occupied one bedroom as man and wife. ' In September, 1948, Mr. Gray formed the corporation, Philip E. Gray, Inc. The corporation employed Mrs. Gray in the fall of 1948 “to take care of the books, which was just a ledger, that he kept on the slot machines- take, not pertaining to any of his other bookkeeping, and keep the office and take telephone calls and so forth and keep the place clean.” She was to be paid a salary of one hundred dollars a week.

They later moved from this office to another house three doors away, where they established a home. Mrs. Gray said she then took care of this home and “went back and forth and kept the office going like I had always ²⁶³ done, and it wasn’t until September of the following year, 1949, that we moved into the hotel; I have been running the hotel since the middle of September, and I found that running the hotel and handling the home and looking after the children, I couldn’t do both jobs, so we took six rooms there at the hotel, and made it into a five room apartment.” She had entire management of the hotel which consisted of about one hundred bedrooms, without a dining room. Six maids and a maintenance man were employed. Mrs. Gray said: “We had it set up, a bell system, where, in case I wasn’t in the office, that they could ring back into the apartment, if I was back in the apartment, taking care of that, * * She took in the money and paid most of the bills.

There was no bank account. All the transactions were in cash. She said she never received any of her salary from the corporation. She said she asked her husband for her salary, but he never paid it.

She continued to hope he would marry her. Finally in May, 1950, she discovered that her husband had been telling people they were not married and he “wouldn’t give me anything to go on except he handed out to me as 1 needed it,” and being convinced that he would not marry her, she quit her employment. She entered this suit on November 30, 1950. She said from time to time during her employment she received from her former husband money in cash as she needed it for food, clothes for the children, furniture for the house, clothing for herself and for him, groceries, doctor’s bills for the children, and large doctor’s bills for herself.

She said this could have amounted to as much as $13,726.00. She said she was required to account for the money he gave her and for the money she received at the hotel and from other employees, Messrs. Hayden and Pennington. She said she accounted to Mr. Gray for all of the money he had given her in a composition book.

She said the corporation owed her for salary, seventeen hundred dollars for the year 1948, fifty-three hundred dollars for the year 1949, and ²⁶⁴ two thousand dollars for the year 1950, less the necessary deductions for income taxes of $1,202.88, leaving a balance of $7,797.12 which had not been paid her. After she left the employ of the corporation she moved out of her former husband’s bedroom and into the bedroom with her son. At the time of trial she was boarding with a Mr. and Mrs. Achenback and working in the A. & P. Store. She admitted that she signed income tax returns for 1948, 1949, and 1950.

She said these returns were prepared by an accountant and she didn’t read them after they were prepared but signed them because Mr. Gray asked her to do so. She further testified that during this period Mr. Gray did not pay her the two hundred dollars for the children and the fifty dollars alimony per month, but merely gave her money for expenses of the family and home. She said at the time she was not living with him, he made out to her each month a check for $50.00 and marked on it “alimony” and a check for $200.00 to her father for the children. Mr. William W.- Pennington, an employee of the appellant corporation, in his deposition, offered by the appellant, testified that when Mr. Gray was out of town he would advance Mrs. Gray money from his “change fund” and put a ticket in the change box showing the payments to Mrs. Gray.

He said Mr. Gray did not object