ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Menzel v. List

Menzel v. List is a court case that happened a long time ago. It's like when you and your friend have an argument and you ask an adult to help you decide who is right. In this case, two adults, Mr. Menzel and Mr. List, had an argument about something and asked a court to help them decide who was right.

Mr. Menzel was a farmer who owned some land, and Mr. List was a carpenter who worked for him. They had a contract that said Mr. List would work for Mr. Menzel for a certain amount of time and get paid a certain amount of money. But things didn't go as planned, and they started to disagree about how much work Mr. List had done and how much money he should get paid.

They went to a court and asked a judge to decide. The judge listened to both of them and read their contract. In the end, the judge said that Mr. Menzel had to pay Mr. List more money than he wanted to because Mr. List had done more work than he thought.

The judge used a legal principle called "quantum meruit," which means "as much as he deserves." It basically means that Mr. List should be paid for the amount of work he had done, even if it wasn't what they had agreed to in the contract.

So, to sum it up, Menzel v. List was a court case where two adults had an argument about money, and a judge had to decide who was right. The judge decided that Mr. List should be paid more money than Mr. Menzel wanted to pay him because he had done more work than they had agreed to in the contract. The judge used a legal principle called "quantum meruit" to make his decision.