Snyder v. May & Klose

• Decision Date: 28 September 1852
• Citation: 19 Pa. 235
• Parties: Snyder <I>versus</I> May & Klose.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 235

19 Pa. 235

Snyder versus May & Klose.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

September 28, 1852.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Union county.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Casey, with whom was Van Gezer, for plaintiff in error.—As to the admission of Keller, it was observed that he leased from May & Klose, for the term commencing August 1849, and ending on 1st April, 1851, for the sum of $300, whilst Snyder was entitled to $300 a year for the same period.

It was contended that the testimony by Gundrum was not admissible. That it was uncertain how long before the lease was executed the conversation as to the terms took place; and that oral proof to vary or affect a written instrument must be confined to what occurred at the execution of it: Rearick v. Rearick, 3 Harris 72; 5 Ser. & R. 421; 6 Id. 411; 14 Id. 414; 1 Pa. Rep. 417.

Slenker and Woods, contrà.—Keller had no interest in the event of the suit. But, besides, the plaintiff first called him, and he was thereby estopped from objecting to him as incompetent: 7 Watts 39; 4 W. & Ser. 171.

The testimony of Gundrum was admissible to prove mistake in drawing the lease. He was one of the parties to it, and the person who drew it: 2 Barr 122, Tyson v. Passmore; 3 Rawle 345; 16 Ser. & R. 424, Bollinger v. Eckert. Snyder is in no better situation than Gundrum.

The opinion of the Court, filed September 28, was delivered by LEWIS, J.

This was an action brought in the Court below by May & Klose against Snyder, to recover an alleged balance due to the plaintiffs below on book account. Mr. Snyder claimed to set off the sum of $600 alleged to be due by May & Klose to George Gundrum, for one year's rent of property leased to them by Gundrum, and which the latter had assigned to Snyder. The plaintiffs below offered Gundrum himself as a witness to prove that, at the time the lease was written, "it was given in and understood and agreed" by the parties that the rent was only $300, and not $600 per annum; and that the words "the semi-annual rent of $300" were written in mistake by Gundrum, the lessor and assignor, under whom the defendant below claimed the set-off. The admission of this evidence is assigned for error, and the ground of objection is that it tended to change the legal construction of the written contract. In this case the real contract of the parties was that $300 per year should be paid in semi-annual payments of $150; and the agreement was written for the purpose of carrying into effect that contract. The effect of the instrument was entirely misunderstood by both parties, and the question is, whether a Court of Equity is incapable of affording relief. We shall not attempt to thread our way through the wilderness of decisions in our books on the subject of correcting mistakes in written instruments by means of parol evidence of what passed at the time of execution. Chief Justice MARSHALL, on a careful examination of the particular question before us, declared that he "could find no case precisely in point, and that the Court was unwilling, when the effect of the instrument is acknowledged to have been entirely misunderstood by both parties, to say that a Court of Equity is incapable of affording relief:" 8 Wheat. 174. When the same case came up again several years afterwards, Mr. Justice WASHINGTON, in delivering the opinion of the Court, affirmed it to be "an incontrovertible principle" of equity "that where an instrument is drawn and executed which professes, or is intended to carry into execution an agreement, whether in writing or parol, previously entered into, but which, by mistake of the draftsman, either as to law or fact, does not fulfil, or which violates the manifest intention of the parties to the agreement, equity will correct the mistake, so as to produce a conformity of the instrument to the agreement:" Hunt v. Rousmanier, 1 Pet. 12. It is true that this principle, which has thus been sanctioned on more than one occasion by the Supreme Court of the United States, has been doubted by one of the judges of this Court, 2 Rawle 428; but the same judge, on a subsequent occasion, declared that "in cases of fraud or mistake Courts of Equity may carry the intention of the parties into execution, where the written agreement has failed to express it:" 2 Barr 122. A principle which has been repeatedly affirmed by the highest judicial authority in the Union, and which is sustained by the learning and wisdom of MARSHALL and WASHINGTON, should be received with the most respectful consideration, and might be adopted without subjecting us to the charge of totally disregarding the standards of the law. But we do not put the case upon that ground, for whatever doubts may exist in regard to the power...