Baucom v. Friend., 474.
Citation | 52 A.2d 123 |
Decision Date | 18 March 1947 |
Docket Number | No. 474.,474. |
Parties | BAUCOM et al. v. FRIEND. |
Court | Court of Appeals of Columbia District |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Division.
Action by Alice Paula Friend against Irl D. Baucom and another on a promissory note. From a judgment on the pleadings in favor of plaintiff, defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
W. Cameron Burton, of Washington, D. C. (Harry J. Breithaupt, Jr., of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellants.
Wilton H. Wallace, of Washington, D. C. (Henry F. Lerch, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellee.
Before CAYTON, Chief Judge, and HOOD and CLAGETT, Associate Judges.
This is an appeal from a judgment on the pleadings awarded by the trial court in favor of the payee against the makers of a promissory note. The note was in the following form:
$1500
December 10, 1945
On Demand after date we promise to pay to
The order of Alice Paula Friend
Fifteen Hundred and no/100 Dollars
At Washington, D. C.
Annum. No. ..... Due March 1, 1946
Suit on the note was commenced April 16, 1946, by appellee, plaintiff in the trial court. In their answer appellants admitted borrowing the money and delivering the note, but alleged that the parties had agreed when the note was given that it would not be payable until one of the defendants began a contemplated new business. It was alleged also that the business had not been started because the quarters which the business was to occupy were not ready for occupancy due to failure to obtain materials. It was urged, therefore, that the note was not yet due when suit was filed. Appellee thereupon filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings on the grounds that the answer admitted the validity of the note and interposed no valid defense thereto. The motion was granted and this appeal followed.
Appellants' first contention is that the trial court should have overruled the motion for judgment on the pleadings and permitted the case to go to trial in order to admit parol evidence of a collateral oral agreement to explain the patent ambiguity in the note, arising from the conflict between the words ‘on demand after date’ and ‘due March 1, 1946.’
We believe that the note was free from ambiguity, and hence that the trial court ruled correctly on this phase of the case. ‘Marginal notations' or memoranda placed on a bill or note at the time of the execution thereof with the intention of making them a part of the contract, constitute a part thereof and must be considered along with the provisions in the body of the instrument in arriving at the true intent of the parties. Bowie v. Hume, 13 App.D.C. 286, 310, 311. When in a note references to the time of payment are made both in the body of the note and by ‘marginal notation,’ it is well settled that the two will be construed together, 1 unless the terms are so contradictory as to be irreconcilable. 2 Thus, in cases like the present where the note contains a provision that it is payable on demand and also a provision that it is due on a specified date, the rule is that the note becomes due on the definite date indicated. 3 Under that rule of construction, therefore, the note here in suit was due March 1, 1946, and there was no need for evidence to explain any ambiguity.
Appellants urge, second, that in any event the truth of their defense, that the parties had orally agreed that the note would not become due until one of them had started a business, was admitted by the motion for judgment on the pleadings, and hence that it was error to sustain such motion. This position, however, is not well taken. A motion for judgment on the pleadings is akin to a general demurrer, now abolished in the Municipal Court as well as in federal practice, insofar as both admit for procedural purposes, only facts well pleaded and inferences reasonably deducible therefrom. 4 In considering such pleadings, therefore, the trial court must necessarily determine whether the facts alleged are well pleaded. Well-pleaded means, among other things, legally capable of being proved 5 and to determine this question it is necessary to pass on the admissibility of evidence relied on to prove such facts. 6
1Bush's Adm'r v. Bush, 276 Ky. 126, 122 S.W.2d 972; Whittier v. First Nat. Bank, 73 Colo. 153, 214 P. 536; Maynor v. Dillin, 241 Ala. 362, 2 So.2d 440; In re Feldman's Estate, 387 Ill. 568, 56 N.E.2d 405, 155 A.L.R. 210; Nylander v. Nylander, 221 Iowa 1358, 268 N.W. 7; Weaver v. Weaver, Tex.Civ.App., 171 S.W.2d 898; Banking Commission v. Townsend, 243 Wis. 329, 10 N.W.2d 110.
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