Rector, Wardens, and Vestrymen of Church of Holy Communion v. Paterson Extension R. Co.

• Decision Date: 12 June 1899
• Citation: 63 N.J.L. 470,43 A. 696
• Parties: RECTOR, WARDENS, AND VESTRYMEN OF CHURCH OF HOLY COMMUNION v. PATERSON EXTENSION R. CO. et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

43 A. 696

63 N.J.L. 470

RECTOR, WARDENS, AND VESTRYMEN OF CHURCH OF HOLY COMMUNION

v. PATERSON EXTENSION R. CO. et al.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 12, 1899.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to circuit court, Passaic county.

Action by the rector, wardens, and vestrymen of the Church of the Holy Communion against the Paterson Extension Railroad Company and another. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

Argued February term, 1899, before MAGIE, C. J., and GARRISON, LIPPINCOTT, and COLLINS, JJ.

Francis Scott, for plaintiff in error.

John W. Griggs, for defendants in error.

COLLINS, J. Error is assigned upon an exception sealed on direction of a verdict in favor of the defendants in an action brought to recover damages for injury to the church edifice of the plaintiff, due to the excavation of a railroad cut adjacent thereto. The declaration counts on a breach of duty to support the church wall, and also on negligence and fraud in performing a verbal agreement to repair the injury. The proof was silent as to who actually constructed the railroad, but it was contracted for by the Paterson Extension Railroad Company, which, pending construction, was, with other companies, consolidated into the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad Company. The excavation in question was made during the year 1881. The south wall of the plaintiffs' church edifice stood so near to this excavation that it became unstable. The building settled and was very considerably injured. Claim for compensation to the church was made on the railroad company, and a settlement was reached, involving a money payment, for which the following receipt was given: "Jan. 9, 1882. Received from G. A. Hobart, Pt. Pat. Extension, one thousand dollars, in full settlement and discharge of all damages done by Railroad Co. against our church. Railroad Co. to pay for all work in process. $1,000. H. A. Collins, Treas." The railroad company afterwards paid for all work then in progress.

The learned judge who tried the cause directed a verdict for the defendants on the ground that this receipt was a conclusive acquittance. That he was right in so ruling seems well settled. A leading case on the subject is Squires v. Amherst, 145 Mass. 192, 13 N. E. 609. There the receipt read as follows: "Received of F. L. Stone, for the town of Amherst, ten dollars, in full for all demands for damage sustained on the highway near the house of Alden Cooley on the evening of December 31st, 1885." The court held that this writing was not merely a receipt, but was also an agreement that the money was received in full payment of all demands for damages sustained by reason of the defect in the highway, and that it could not be varied or controlled by evidence of an oral agreement made contemporaneously with it, and inconsistent with its terms. Counsel for the plaintiff does not dispute the doctrine of this and like decisions, but he draws a distinction from the clause requiring the railroad company to pay for "all work in process." He argues that this clause shows that the receipt was not intended to embody the whole of the agreement between the parties. I think such clause strongly evidential to the contrary of that contention. What work was in fact proceeding could be proved by parol, but nothing further. What is claimed by the plaintiff is that the verbal agreement extended to an undertaking to make the foundation secure, and was broken by an inefficient or fraudulent performance of that work. Our decisions are uniform and explicit that the sole criterion of the completeness of a writing to express the agreement of the parties is the writing itself, and that no collateral oral agreement is admissible in evidence, unless it relates to some subject distinct from that to which the written agreement relates. Naumberg v. Young, 44 N. J. Law, 331; Snowhill v. Reed, 49 N. J. Law, 292, 10 Atl. 737; Bandholz v. Judge (N. J. Sup.) 41 Atl. 723. The agreement asserted in this case was to restore and make secure the foundation of the church edifice, that had been disturbed by the railroad company's excavation. It is plain that such an agreement would not have been collateral to that evidenced by the writing, for it must have been directly on the...