Hoffman v. Late, 5-154

• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: GEORGE ROSE SMITH
• Citation: Hoffman v. Late, 222 Ark. 395, 260 S.W.2d 446 (Ark. 1953)
• Decision Date: 06 July 1953
• Docket Number: No. 5-154,5-154
• Parties: HOFFMAN et ux. v. LATE.

Page 446

260 S.W.2d 446

222 Ark. 395

HOFFMAN et ux. v. LATE.

No. 5-154.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

July 6, 1953.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 5, 1953.

Lee Seamster and E. J. Ball, Fayetteville, for appellants.

Crouch & Blair, Springdale, and Rex W. Perkins and Jeff Duty, Fayetteville, for appellee.

GEORGE ROSE SMITH, Justice.

This is an action in unlawful detainer for the possession of certain business property, used as a cafe. The tenants' defense is that they exercised an option to renew the lease and are entitled to retain possession for an additional year. The trial court, sitting without a jury, entered judgment for the plaintiff.

The appellants, Ralph Hoffman and his wife, were not originally parties to the lease. On August 31, 1951, Late leased the property to Lawrence Clark for a primary term of one year, 'with an option for an additional five years from year to year.' The lease also provides that it cannot be assigned by the tenant without the landlord's written consent. In November Clark's wife became ill, and he sought Late's permission to transfer the lease to the Hoffmans. Late testified, over objection, that he consented to the transfer only upon an oral agreement with the Hoffmans that they were to have the property just for the rest of the primary term, with no privilege of renewal. When Late accepted the Hoffmans as tenants he or his representative had them add their signatures to the written lease. Late retained a signed copy of the lease and made it an exhibit to his complaint below.

On June 24, 1952, Late gave the Hoffmans written notice to vacate at the end of the primary term, on August 31, 1952. They countered by serving notice on Late that they were exercising their privilege of renewal for another year. When the tenants refused to surrender possession at the end of the primary term this suit was filed. We regard as the decisive issue the Hoffmans' contention that Late's testimony about the oral agreement is contrary to the parol evidence rule.

It is the accepted present-day view that the parol evidence rule is not really a rule of evidence but is instead a rule of substantive law. Wigmore on Evidence (3d Ed.), § 2400; Williston on Contracts (Rev.Ed.), § 631; Rest., Contracts, § 237; 4 Ark.L.Rev. 168. As Wigmore puts it, supra: 'What the rule does is to declare that certain kinds of facts are legally ineffective in the substantive law; and this of course (like any other ruling of substantive law) results in forbidding the fact to be proved at all.' The practical justification for the rule lies in the stability that it gives to written contracts; for otherwise either party might avoid his obligation by testifying that a contemporaneous oral agreement released him from the duties that he had simultaneously assumed in writing.

Hence in the case at bar it makes no difference whether Late's version of the oral negotiations is true or false. In point is Randle v. Overland Texarkans Co., 182 Ark. 877, 32 S.W.2d 1064, 75 A.L.R. 1516, where the plaintiff, by demurring to the answer, admitted an allegation that there had been an oral agreement contrary to...