Not everything comes up roses for landscaper seeking payment in court

If you join in your boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s contract with a third person, you could find that all is not lovey-dovey.

That’s the lesson a Tyngsborough couple learned recently after a Massachusetts judge issued a ruling in their case.

The man and woman decided to move in together in when their romance became serious. They soon found that their yard needed work, so they hired a landscaper.

After the landscaper beautified the yard, the couple became dissatisfied with his gardening work and refused to pay him in full. As a result, he sued them and they countersued.

A judge eventually ruled in favor of the couple. Coincidentally, their romance had soured during the lawsuit, and their relationship ended.

The landscaper, who was unaware of that breakup, wrote a check for the full amount of the damages to the female member of the sundered pair. She cashed it and kept all the proceeds.

Her former partner, upset, went to court asking that the landscaper be compelled to write a new check in the name of both winning plaintiffs.

A judge refused to grant the man relief, as did the Appellate Division of the District Court on appeal in the case of Jarvis v. Downey, et al.

“[B]ecause [the landscaper] paid the judgment in full,” the court said, “the trial judge properly declined to take further action. Payment to one coplaintiff satisfies a judgment.

“[The girlfriend]‘s action in accepting full payment of the amount of the judgment bound [her former partner] in the absence of fraud, which [was] not alleged here.

“The [landscaper] had nothing to do with the alleged hostility of the [couple] toward each other. He owed no greater duty to one than the other, and the delivery to either was a delivery to both. As they were coplaintiffs, equally interested in the judgment, each was the agent of the other. …

“The [landscaper] having paid the judgment … in full, has no further legal obligations to [the boyfriend].”

- Paul Lamoureux

 paul.lamoureux at exhibitAnews.com