Business Law 13th Edition by Frank Cross, Kenneth Clarkson, Roger LeRoy Miller

Exercise 13

The Writing Requirement. Jason Novell, doing business as Novell Associates, hired Barbara Meade to work for him. The parties orally agreed on the terms of employment, including payment of a share of the company's income to Meade, but they did not put anything in writing. Two years later, Meade quit. Novell then told Meade that she was entitled to $9,602-25 percent of the difference between the accounts receivable and the accounts payable as of Meade's last day of work. Meade disagreed and demanded more than $63,500-25 percent of the revenue from all invoices, less the cost of materials and outside processing, for each of the years that she had worked for Novell. Meade filed a lawsuit against Novell for breach of contract. (See page 305.)
(a) The first group should decide whether the parties had an enforceable contract.
(b) The second group should decide whether that the parties' oral agreement falls within any exception to the Statute of Frauds
(c) The third group should discuss how the lawsuit would be affected if Novell admitted that the parties had an oral contract under which Meade was entitled to 25 percent of the difference between accounts receivable and payable as of the day Meade quit.