OSLER J.A. tween the parties. What the plaintiff received or was Judgment. entitled to on arriving at the age of eighteen depended upon the bargain made with the defendant by her father when she was placed as an infant under his control, and it is difficult to say that this was to be given on the footing of a reward for services rendered. After she attained eighteen, no express agreement was made, and we must therefore look for evidence from which one may be implied. If the plaintiff is to recover anything, very little would suffice, and if there had been on the defendant's part merely a desire expressed to the plaintiff that she would remain with him, and services rendered by her thereafter, it would have been enough to warrant a verdict quantum meruit even though nothing whatever had been said about wages. Nothing was in fact said about wages, and the difficulty in the plaintiff's way is, that she begins by proving that her home had always been with defendant from infancy; that he was in loco parentis towards her, and that she had been brought up by him and his wife as one of the family and therefore did not in the first instance go there as a servant, though she was by the agreement made with her father, to receive a sort of outfit or portion at eighteen. She might have gone away on arriving at that age, or before it, and qua servant she could have claimed nothing. Instead of doing so she remained in his house without any apparent change in their relations until her father came to take her away. Then, according to her own statement, which agrees with the evidence of the defendant and his wife, she told them that she would stay if they would use her better and pay her wages." Taken in connection with the fact that nothing had previously been said about her staying for wages, the only inference that can justly be drawn from this is, that she had not been working for wages from the time she arrived at eighteen until her father came for her. Her statement entirely fits in and is consistent with the uncontradicted evidence of the defendant and his wife, that they were willing she should go at the expiration of the time OSLER Judgment. for which they had taken her, and told her that her things were ready for her at any time, but that she said she was not going away until she got married. This, if the plaintiff had then in her mind the intention of claiming wages, was directly to mislead and deceive the defendants. It appears to me on the whole that there was no evidence proper to be submitted to the jury of any implied contract to pay wages or remuneration for services, and that the plaintiff stayed with the defendant for no other reason than that she regarded his house as her home, and that he and his wife permitted her to do so without any intention on either side that she should be paid for services rendered by her. I think, therefore, the learned Judge should have entered a non-suit either at the conclusion of the plaintiff's case, or directed a verdict for the defendant when the whole of the evidence was in, and that, the case having been sent to the jury, the verdict entered for the plaintiff should be set aside and verdict now directed for the defendant. I may add a reference to Reeve v. Reeve, 1 F. & F. 280, and Otis v. Hall, 117 N. Y. 131. HAGARTY, C. J. O., and MACLENNAN, J. A., concurred. Appeal allowed with costs. CUMBERLAND V. KEARNS. Covenants for title-Local improvement rates. The defendant joined in a petition to a municipal council to pass a by-law to open a street through the property of the defendant and others under the local improvement clauses of the Municipal Act. The petition was adopted and a by-law passed under which the work petitioned for was done. Subsequently the defendant sold his land to the plaintiff's and conveyed it to them by deed made in pursuance of the Act respecting Short Forms of Conveyances, containing the statutory covenants for title. A rate to pay for the improvements, payable in ten annual instalments, but subject to commutation, was imposed afterwards upon the land benefited, including that sold by the defendant. Held, affirming the judgment of the Chancery Division, 18 0. R. 151, that the rate was an encumbrance created in part by the action of the defendant, and that the plaintiffs were entitled to recover damages under the covenants for quiet enjoyment and against encumbrances, the amount recoverable being the smallest amount necessary to discharge the encumbrance. THIS was an appeal from the judgment of the Chancery Statement. Division, reported 18 O. R. 151. The defendant and others were the owners of a large block of land in the western part of the city of Toronto, between Bloor street and Dundas street, and wished to run a street through this block of land so that they might be able to sell off the property in building lots. For two or three years attempts were made by the owners to induce the Council to take the matter up as a local improvement, and finally in February, 1885, a petition was presented to the Council, signed by the defendant and the other owners of the property to be benefited, praying that the street might be opened and the work constructed as a local improvement, the cost to be paid by special rate asscssed upon the property pursuant to the provisions of the Municipal Act. The defendant was active in promoting the petition and in obtaining signatures thereto. On the 24th of February, 1885, the Committee of Works reported to the Council that the petition had been signed by the requisite number of property owners interested, representing one-half in value of the property benefited, and they recommended that the prayer of the owners should Statement. be granted and that a by-law should be passed to give effect to it. The matter was referred to the Engineer, who on the 21st of April, 1885, reported that the cost of opening the street, including compensation for land and structures on the line of the proposed street and all necessary grading and fencing, would be approximately $8,200, and would be assessed equally on the property on the line of the street in proportion to the frontage, the whole being equally benefited by the proposed improvement. This was passed on by the Works Committee to the Council on the same day. On the 27th of April, 1885, the Engineer reported to the Council the description of the property which would be specially benefited by the proposed work, and he included the parcel in question in this action. Proceedings were then taken in the usual manner before the Court of Revision, and the Engineer's report was confirmed by that Court on the 24th of June, 1885. On the 9th of July, 1885, the Council passed a by-law in which it was recited that it was desirable and necessary, for the convenience of the owners of the property mentioned in the Engineer's report, to establish and open up a public road or highway at the expense of the property benefited, and it was enacted that the street in question should be and thereby was established, and that the parcel of land specially described therefor in the by-law should be and thereby was taken and appropriated for and established and confirmed as a public street, to be known as Margueretta Street. On the 23rd of September, 1885, a by-law was passed appointing an arbitrator on behalf of the Council to determine the amount of the compensation to be paid to the owners of the lands expropriated. On the 16th of October, 1885, the defendant and other property owners signed a memorandum stating that they were ready and willing "to dedicate and give so much of our properties as form part of the said street, being strips of the said properties measuring 33 feet on each side of the proposed street by the length of our frontage, and Statement. to take and receive therefor at the rate of $2.50 a foot for each foot of said strip." This memorandum was adopted by the Council as settling the amount to be paid to the several owners as compensation for the property expropriated for the street and no arbitration was had. A report of the Committee of Works (not dated but prior to the 10th of November, 1885,) containing a statement shewing the names of the several owners, their frontages and the amount they were to receive "according to their agreement of the 16th of October, 1885," and recommending that the Treasurer should be instructed to provide funds to pay the amounts, was subsequently passed. The statement in this report shewed that instead of the cost of the whole work being $8,200 as estimated,the cost of the land alone would be $19,126.33, and the latter sum was on the 10th of November, 1885, directed to be provided by the Treasurer as an "interim appropriation." The work was then proceeded with, and after it was done a by-law was passed, on the 29th of August, 1887, entitled "By-law to provide for borrowing money by the issue of debentures secured by local special rates on the property fronting or abutting on Margueretta Street." This by-law contained a recital of the petition already referred to and a recital that the street had been opened and that the whole cost was $21,921.24, of which the City was to bear $452.28, and it enacted that a rate of $44 and 6 13/100 mills per foot frontage should be imposed on the real property described and benefited (the land in question being included in the description), for the term of ten years, in order to raise the amount annually required to meet the debentures thereby authorized to be issued for the work. The defendant had in the meantime sold the land in question to the plaintiffs, and had conveyed it to them by deed bearing date the 14th of April, 1887. This deed was made in pursuance of the Act Respecting Short Forms of |