Pearson v. Carson

• Decision Date: 30 April 1879
• Citation: Pearson v. Carson, 69 Mo. 550 (Mo. 1879)
• Parties: PEARSON v. CARSON, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

69 Mo. 550

PEARSON

v.CARSON, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

April Term, 1879.

Parol Evidence will not be received for the purpose of engrafting additional stipulations upon a written contract which is complete in itself.

Appeal from Audrain Circuit Court.--HON. G. PORTER, Judge.

W. O. Forrist and Kennan & McIntyre for appellant.

S. M. Edwards and Macfarlane & Trimble for respondent.

NAPTON, J.

This action was on the following contract: “J. W. Carson has rented of R. W. Pearson 160 acres of pasture land, on the Pearson farm, for the sum of $95-- one-half to be paid on the 15th day of August, 1875, the balance to be paid on the 1st day of November, 1875. Said Pearson acknowledges the receipt of $10 on the payment.

(Signed)

J. W. CARSON,

R. W. PEARSON.”

As a defense to this action, which was for the last installment, which had not been paid, the defendant proposed to prove that he was the owner of a lot of Texas cattle, and rented this pasture to feed them during the grazing season; that plaintiff agreed to keep up and maintain the fence around the pasture, and to look after said cattle; that said lands were not fenced as represented, and the fences were not kept up, except for about four weeks, and his cattle strayed away, and he was unable to keep them in said pasture. The court refused to allow this evidence, and we think it was rightly excluded. In effect, the evidence would engraft on the written contract two very material additions to it, and impose on the owner two obligations which the contract does not impose, to-wit: To keep the fences in repair and look after the cattle. The cases of Van Studdiford v. Hazlett, 56 Mo. 322, and Life Association of America v. Cravens, 60 Mo. 388, are unlike the present, and so are the cases of Moss v. Green, 41 Mo. 390, and Rollins v. Claybrook, 22 Mo. 405.

The written contract in the present case is complete, and to introduce the provisions proposed, relating, as they do, to the same subject matter, would add to and vary the written agreement. In Smith v. Williams, 1 Murphy 430, Judge Taylor observes: “The first reflection that occurs to the mind, upon the statement of the question, independent of any technical rules, is that the parties, by making a written memorial of their transaction, have impliedly agreed that, in the event of any future misunderstanding, that writing shall be referred to as the proof of their act and intention; that such obligations, as arise from the paper by just construction or legal intendment, shall be valid and compulsory on them, but that they will not subject themselves to any stipulations beyond the contract, because if they meant to be bound by any such, they might have added them to the writing, and thus have given them a clearness, a force and a direction,...