Garrison v. Kress

1907 OK 141, 91 P. 1130, 19 Okla. 433, 1907 Okla. LEXIS 218

• Court: Supreme Court of Oklahoma
• Decided: September 20, 1907
• Status: Published

Opinion

Opinion of the court by

Irwin, J.:

The sole and only question raised in this case by the brief and argument of plaintiff in error, and the only ground assigned as error for a reversal of this' case, is the action of the court in refusing the evidence as to the oral agreement. We take the proposition to be elementary that all prior and contemporaneous oral argreements as to matters involved in a written contract are merged in the written contract, and that the written contract cannot be changed or varied by such prior and contemporaneous parol agreements. Our statute, in our judgment, conclusively settles this proposition. Section 781, Wilson’s Statutes of Oklahoma 1903, is as follows:

“The execution of a contract in writing, whether the law requires it to be written or -not, supersedes all the oral negotiations or stipulations concerning its matter which preceded or accompanied the execution of the instrument.”

The supreme court of this territory, in the case of Deming Investment Company v. Shawnee Fire Insurance Co., 16 Okla. 1, 83 Pac. 918, says:

“A contract in writing, if its terms are free from doubt and ambiguity, must be permitted to speak for itself, and cannot by the courts, at the instance of one of the parties, be altered or contradicted by parol evidence unless in.ease of fraud or mutual mistake of facts.”

The same doctrine is laid down by this court in the case of Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Company v. Richardson Lumber Co., 11 Okla. 585, 69 Pac. 938.

On the strength of this statute and these cases, the decision of the probate court is affirmed, at the costs of the plaintiff in error.

Pancoast and Garber, JJ., absent; all the other Justices concurring.