Stradley v. Bath Portland Cement Co.

Citations

• 228 Pa. 108
• 77 A. 242
• 1910 Pa. LEXIS 441

Syllabus

<p>Res adjudicata — Master and servant — Judgment.</p> <p>1. Where a person employed for one year at a fixed salary payable in monthly installments, brings an action against his employer to recover the first month’s salary, and in his statement of claim duly sets forth the contract and its terms, and avers performance of duties, and nonpayment for same, and judgment is entered against the defendant for want of an affidavit of defense, and such judgment is paid, the judgment if unimpeached and unreversed, is res adjudicata in a later suit to recover other monthly installments of pay, as to all matters relating to the contract set forth'in the plaintiff’s statement of claim in the first suit.</p> <p>2. In such a case the fact that the first suit was on the contract for one month’s salary, and the second for damages arising from a breach of the contract, makes no difference as to the application of the doctrine of res adjudicata to such material issuable facts as are common to both.</p> <p>Master and servant — Salary—Installments—Actions.</p> <p>3. When an employee on a contract for a fixed period, at a per annum salary payable monthly, has been wrongfully discharged, he can, if he sees fit, bring a separate action as each installment of salary falls due; yet if no action is brought until more than, one is due, all installments that are then due must be included in the one action; and if an action is brought when more than one is due, a-recovery in such action will be an effectual bar to a second suit brought to recover installments which were due at the time of the inception of the first action; and this on the theory that a judgment settles everything involved in the right to recover, not only matters that were raised, but those which might have been raised.</p>