Ray v. Blackwell
| Decision Date | 28 February 1886 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | THOMAS RAY v. W. T. BLACKWELL et als. |
CIVIL ACTION, tried before Gilmer, Judge, and a jury, at January Special Term, 1886, of the Superior Court of DURHAM county.
The plaintiff entered into a contract, written and under seal, with the defendants William T. Blackwell and Julian S. Carr, constituting the partnership firm of Blackwell & Carr, for the rent of a certain house owned by them, expressed in the following terms:
“The undersigned, Thomas Ray, hereby agrees to rent from Blackwell & Carr the premises known as House No. 18, situate on Rail Road street, for the term of twelve months, at the price of ten dollars per month, payable monthly in advance. And it is further agreed, that the said Thomas Ray shall take good care of the said property, not committing, nor permitting any waste thereon, and shall not sublet the same without the written consent of said Blackwell & Carr. And further, that if the rent shall not be paid at the first of each and every month, or if at any time any of the stipulations hereof are broken, then the term of the said Thomas Ray therein shall cease, and the said Blackwell & Carr shall resume their possession of the same, which the said Thomas Ray agrees to surrender, waiving all demand and notice to which he might otherwise be entitled under the law.
In testimony whereof, the said Thomas Ray has hereunto set his hand and seal the 3rd day of September, 1883.
THOMAS his X mark. RAY, (Seal).
Witness:
N. A. RAMSEY.”
Under this contract of lease, confined to a single room in the numbered tenement, the plaintiff held possession for about one month, as his complaint alleges, when the defendant Ramsey, as agent for, and under the authority of his co-defendants, took possession of the house, in the presence of, and against the remonstrance of the plaintiff, and in the course of several days removed it to another locality, in doing which it was rendered uninhabitable, and plaintiff was compelled to leave. For this invasion of the plaintiff's possession and the damages consequent thereon, the present action was instituted by the issue of a summons early in the next month.
The answer, not controverting the making of the lease nor the entry upon the premises and removal of the house, defends their action by averring that there was a contemporary verbal agreement accompanying the execution of the covenant, that the lessors should have the right, to be exercised at their pleasure, to remove the house at any time during the year, and the lease should terminate, and that they had availed themselves of this reserved power.
Upon the trial of issues before the jury, the defendants proposed to prove, and after objection made by plaintiff and overruled, were allowed to prove, by the defendant Ramsey, examined as a witness for the defendants, that such agreement as is set out in the answer was made; that he told the plaintiff he could not rent the property for a longer time than it was the pleasure of his employers to allow the house to remain where it was; that they intended to remove it, and, if during the twelve months, they should choose, they were to have full liberty to do so and plaintiff must surrender possession.
There was a verdict and judgment for the defendants, and the plaintiff appealed.
Mr. John Manning, for the plaintiff .
Mr. W. W. Fuller, for the defendants .
SMITH, C. J. (after stating the facts).
It is a rule too firmly established in the law of evidence to need a reference to authority in its support, that parol evidence will not be heard to contradict, add to, take from or in any way vary the terms of a contract put in writing, and all contemporary declarations and understandings are incompetent for such purpose, for the reason that the parties,...
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