Bruns v. Schreiber
| Decision Date | 13 June 1890 |
| Citation | 45 N.W. 861,43 Minn. 468 |
| Parties | Henry A. Bruns v. Sallie Schreiber and another, Administrators |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action brought in the district court for Clay county, to recover $ 11.000 damages for breach of a covenant against incumbrances. Trial before Mills, J., and verdict for defendants. Appeal by plaintiff from an order refusing a new trial.
Order reversed.
R. R Briggs, for appellant.
Burnham & Tillotson, for respondents.
This is an appeal by the plaintiff from an order denying a new trial after verdict in favor of the defendants. The action was prosecuted against Franklin J. Schreiber (who has died and in whose place his administrators have been substituted as defendants) and his wife, Sallie, to recover damages for a breach of the covenants in a deed of conveyance executed by Schreiber and wife to the plaintiff, in 1881, conveying a large tract of land. The consideration expressed in the deed was the payment by the grantee of the sum of $ 45,000. The deed contained the usual covenants, on the part of the grantors, of seisin, warranty of title, and quiet enjoyment, and of freedom from incumbrances; the terms of the latter covenant being qualified only by an express exception as to certain mortgages, which the grantee was to assume. The alleged breach upon which recovery is sought is that the granted land was burdened with an easement in favor of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, which corporation had a right of way over the land, and had constructed and was operating its railroad there. Upon the case presented at the trial the court ruled, and instructed the jury, that the land was subject to that servitude, and that this constituted an incumbrance. The contention on this appeal arises from the fact that parol evidence was received bearing upon the effect to be ascribed to the covenants in the deed as respects that incumbrance. It was in substance alleged, in defence of this action, that, prior to the execution and delivery of this deed, it was agreed orally between the parties thereto that the plaintiff -- the grantee in the deed to be executed -- should himself convey to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, without consideration, the right of way now said to belong to that company, in compliance with a parol agreement which Schreiber had previously made with the corporation, and that this land was included in the deed to the plaintiff in order that he might make such conveyance; that there was really no other consideration for the conveyance of that land to the plaintiff by the deed in question, no part of the expressed consideration of $ 45,000 being applicable to that part of the granted premises. The court received parol evidence of this agreement alleged to have been made previous to the execution of the deed. The admissibility of such evidence is the real point of controversy on this appeal. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants.
The respondents, recognizing the general rule which forbids the contradiction or variation of the written agreements of parties by proof of their prior or contemporaneous negotiations or agreements resting only in parol, claim that this case is within a recognized qualification of that rule. They seek to avail themselves of the general proposition that the statement of the consideration in a deed of conveyance is not conclusive upon the parties, and hence insist that they might show that this parol agreement of the plaintiff formed a consideration for the deed in addition to the consideration expressed therein; and that this being shown, the grantee ought not to recover damages for the incumbrance which he, acting perhaps upon the assumption that it did not then exist, thus agreed to create by a conveyance of the easement to the railroad company. The reception of this evidence cannot be sustained on this theory. No mistake or fraud is alleged. The deed was complete, operative, and of legal effect, and is to be taken to have been just as the parties intended it to be. It is not claimed that it was invalid, or that it was not immediately operative when it was delivered, nor that the consideration named in it was not paid. There is no uncertainty or room for contention as to the legal effect of the deed, and of the covenants embraced therein, standing alone, and unmodified by extraneous proof of some other agreement. It embraced a grant of the land over which the railroad easement existed, with other lands, the expressed consideration for all of which was the entire sum of $...
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