Trambly v. Ricard
| Decision Date | 17 January 1881 |
| Citation | 130 Mass. 259 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | Sigfroid Trambly v. Hubert Ricard & another |
Exceptions sustained.
B. B Jones, for the plaintiff.
W. H Moody, for the defendants.
OPINION
The first count in the plaintiff's declaration is for trespass to real estate, and removing the plaintiff's furniture. The second is for the conversion of the same furniture. The defendants, in justification of their acts, rely upon an alleged breach of the plaintiff's written agreement, which stated that he borrowed the furniture of them, and by which he agreed to hold the furniture as their property, paying them a weekly sum for the use of the same, with the privilege of buying it at a price named. To this contract, the plaintiff, being unable to read or write, affixed his mark. He contended at the trial that it was obtained from him by fraud, and offered to prove that, before he affixed his mark, the defendants orally agreed to sell the furniture to him at a price named, part of which was to be paid down, and the balance in instalments; that nothing was said at any time about borrowing or paying rent for it; and that, immediately after agreeing on the terms, the defendants requested him to sign the written contract, which he did, supposing the same to contain the terms and stipulations of the oral agreement. The plaintiff testified that the written agreement was not read or explained to him, and that he did not request that it should be. He admitted that the defendants made no verbal or written representations of its contents.
The judge excluded the evidence; and the only question here is whether the jury would be justified in finding from it that the written agreement was fraudulently obtained.
In the absence of fraud or imposition, it is presumed that the terms of a written contract were known and assented to by the parties who signed it; that they either read it, or were informed of its contents, or were willing to assent to its terms without reading it. This presumption is not defeated by showing that the contract signed was different from that which one or the other supposed he was signing. It is not permitted to show that another contract was the real contract, because the parties have chosen to put their agreement in writing, as the better way to preserve its terms, and parol evidence cannot be admitted to vary it. But this familiar rule does not exclude evidence which tends to show that the written contract was by some fraud or imposition never in fact freely and intelligently signed by the party sought to be charged. It may...
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... ... Ebert, ... 29 Wis. 196; Anderson v. Walter, 34 Mich. 113; ... Bank v. Lierman, 5 Neb. 247; Puffer v ... Smith, 57 Ill. 527; Trambly v. Ricard, 130 ... Mass. 259; Gibbs v. Linabury, 22 Mich. 479; ... Foster v. McKinnon, L. R. 4 C. P. 704; Western ... Mfg. Co. v. Cotton & Long, ... ...
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...“presum[ing] that the [contents of these exhibits] were known and assented to” creates any potential for unfair surprise. Trambly v. Ricard, 130 Mass. 259, 260 (1881). That is not, of course, to suggest that the department is bound by every inference that could conceivably be drawn from a s......
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