## Facts

- Savage, an accountant, interviewed for an office position with Spur Distributing Company in Nashville while employed elsewhere.
- During the interview, Savage asked whether the job was temporary or permanent, and was told it would be “permanent” so long as the company was satisfied with his work.
- Savage accepted the position, resigned his prior employment, and relocated to Nashville.
- Compensation included a $300 monthly salary and a bonus tied to company earnings, but no fixed duration of employment was stated.
- Savage worked for Spur for slightly more than one year before being discharged.
- The employer attributed the termination to a reorganization; Savage claimed it was not for cause and breached a contract for “permanent” employment.
- Savage sought damages, arguing that the “permanent” promise created a binding term of employment conditioned on satisfactory performance and that his resignation and relocation supplied additional consideration.

## Issues

1. Whether an oral promise of “permanent” employment conditioned on employer satisfaction creates a contract for a definite term rather than an at-will employment relationship.
2. Whether resignation from prior employment and relocation in reliance on the promise constitutes independent consideration sufficient to enforce a permanent or long-term employment contract.
3. Whether the asserted bonus component supported recoverable damages where proof of company earnings was not presented.

## Decision

- The Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed the directed verdict for Spur Distributing.
- The court held the hiring was for an indefinite period and therefore terminable at will by either party.
- The court ruled that describing employment as “permanent” if the company was satisfied did not supply a definite duration or restrict the employer’s right to terminate.
- The court rejected Savage’s reliance-based consideration theory, holding that quitting a job and moving to accept new employment are ordinary incidents of hiring and not independent consideration for permanent employment.
- The lack of evidence of company earnings left no basis to compute any claimed bonus damages.

## Legal Principles

- A general or indefinite hiring is presumptively at-will, terminable by either party absent a definite term or legally sufficient modification.
- An oral assurance of “permanent” employment, without a stated duration, is ordinarily construed as employment for an indefinite term and does not alone create a fixed-term or lifetime contract.
- A condition that employment continues only while the employer is “satisfied” does not, by itself, impose a definite term or materially limit termination rights in an otherwise indefinite hiring.
- To enforce a permanent or lifetime employment promise, the employee must show clear, definite contractual terms or additional, independent consideration beyond the employee’s agreement to perform services.
- Resignation from prior employment and relocation expenses undertaken to accept a job are generally not independent consideration sufficient to convert at-will employment into a permanent or lifetime contract.

## Conclusion

The court treated the employment arrangement as indefinite and at-will despite an oral assurance of “permanent” employment conditioned on employer satisfaction, and it held that the employee’s resignation and relocation were not independent consideration that could make the promise enforceable as a long-term contract.


Savage v. Spur Distrib. Co., 33 Tenn. App. 27, 228 S.W.2d 122 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1949)