Jarnagin v. Edwards

194 P. 1097, 22 Ariz. 116, 1921 Ariz. LEXIS 111
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 26, 1921
DocketCivil No. 1849
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 194 P. 1097 (Jarnagin v. Edwards) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jarnagin v. Edwards, 194 P. 1097, 22 Ariz. 116, 1921 Ariz. LEXIS 111 (Ark. 1921).

Opinion

ROSS, C. J.

We will designate the parties hereto plaintiff and defendant, as in the lower court. On January 4, 1918, the plaintiff Jarnagin, executed a written lease to defendant Edwards, of the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 11, township 3 north, range 1 east, Maricopa county, Arizona, for the term of two years from that date [117]*117at a yearly rental of $1,400, and therein gave defendant an option to purchase said tract at any time during the first year of lease at $225 per acre. In-the meantime plaintiff and defendant entered into a contract, optional in its nature, to trade or exchange places, the said contract being as follows:

“This agreement made and entered into this 27th day of August, 1918, between R.' G. Edwards and E. P. Jarnagin, of Maricopa county, state of Arizona, witnesseth: That R. G. Edwards is the owner of the west half of the southeast quarter of section 12, township 3 north, range 1 east and E. P. Jarnagin is the owner of the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 11, township 3 north, range 1 east, all situate in Maricopa county, state of Arizona, and that in consideration of the sum of $1 in hand as earnest money paid by each one to the other, they agree to sell as follows:

“R. G. Edwards to E. P. Jarnagin, the west half of the southeast quarter of section 12, township 3 north, range 1 east (except a frame house 12x20) for the sum of nineteen thousand five hundred ($19,500.00) dollars.

“E. P. Jarnagin to R. C. Edwards the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 11, township 3 north, range 1 east, for the sum of ten thousand ($10,000.00) dollars, each to assume all mortgages now on record on the land purchased, and pay any difference in cash or negotiable papers, all to be completed on or before January 1, 1919, and possession to be given at that date; otherwise this agreement to be void.”

On June 5, 1919, plaintiff filed this suit to recover of defendant one year’s rental; that being the time the latter occupied plaintiff’s premises under the lease. Defendant’s answer was a plea in confession and avoidance. He admitted the lease and his obligation to pay rent, but alleged that, contemporaneously with the signing of the contract to exchange [118]*118lands, plaintiff and defendant entered into a parol contract by the terms of which it was agreed and understood between them that the price of. their lands fixed and agreed upon should be such as that, in the event the agreement to exchange deeds was carried out it should abrogate said lease and relieve defendant from paying the sum which would otherwise be due thereon, and in that connection defendant alleged the said contract had been fully performed by both plaintiff and defendant. On the pleadings as stated a trial was had before a jury, and a verdict was returned in favor of defendant. From the judgment entered thereon plaintiff appeals.

Defendant was permitted over objections to introduce evidence in support of the parol agreement set out in his answer. He testified in effect that the considerations named in the contract of August 27th were not correct in amount; that the agreed consideration for his eighty acres was $20,000, and for defendant’s forty acres was $9,000; that by the deduction of $500 from the value of his place and the addition of $1,000 to the value of plaintiff’s place plaintiff would receive $1,500 more than he was entitled to; and that the values were so fixed in the contract in.order to care for the item of $1,400 rental admittedly due and owing plaintiff from defendant in case the exchange of places was later effected. In other words, defendant sought to prove that he paid $1,000 of the $1,400 rental by agreeing in the contract to pay $10,000 for plaintiff’s forty acres instead of $9,000, the optional price to him under the lease contract, and that he paid the balance of the rental by reducing the price of his eighty acres from $20,000 to $19,500.

This evidence, plaintiff contends, changed the contract of August 27th and violated the parol evidence [119]*119rule. In that contract plaintiff agreed to sell to the defendant for the sum of $10,000 and the defendant agreed to sell to the plaintiff for the sum of $19,500, and they did in fact make the deal on those terms later on by each paying to the other the consideration therein named. Neither of the parties could have been asked or required to make the transfer upon any other terms or for any other consideration. That the considerations named were contractual is evident from the fact that the contract recites the payment to each other of the nominal sum of one dollar earnest-money, and thereafter gives in definite and fixed figures the values upon which the exchange of property was to be made. The intent to make the values therein stated an essential ingredient of the contract is apparent. When such is the case, the law forbids the proof of a contemporaneous oral contract of a different consideration.

In Harding v. Robinson, 175 Cal 534, 542, 166 Pac. 808, 811, it is said:

“The well-recognized limitation upon the right of a party to vary by parol evidence the terms of a contract and prove the true consideration is well declared as follows: ‘Where the statement in a written instrument as to the consideration is more than a mere statement of fact or acknowledgment of payment of a money consideration, and is of a contractual nature as whore the consideration consists of a specific and direct promise by one of the parties to do certain things, this part of the contract can no more be changed or modified by parol or extrinsic evidence than any other part, for the party has the right to make the consideration of his agreement of the essence of the contract, and when 'this is done the provision as to the consideration for the contract must stand upon the same plane as the other provisions of the contract with reference to conclusiveness and immunity from attack by parol or extrinsic evidence.’ 17 Cyc. 661.”

[120]*120The case of Borchert v. Skidmore Land Co., 168 Wis. 523, 171 N. W. 70, was one in which it was attempted to prove a different consideration than that named in the contract for the sale of land, and it seems to us that the reasons given therein why a contemporaneous parol agreement of a different consideration might be permitted to be proved are much stronger than in this case.. However, the court said:

“The written contract for the exchange of properties was unambiguous and complete in itself. It stated what each party agreed to do in order to secure the conveyance contracted for from the other. The Skidmore Land Company agreed to convey to Coons certain real estate in consideration of his deeding to it, subject to the mortgages in suit and others, the land it was to receive. The terms, therefore, upon which it agreed to part with its land, and the terms upon which it would receive the Coons land, were contractual terms. They constituted the very essence of the contract. It is a familiar rule that the material contractual terms of a written contract, when complete and unambiguous, cannot be contradicted or varied by parol testimony.”

In Union Machinery & Supply Co. v. Darnell, 89 Wash. 226, 154 Pac. 183, it is said:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
194 P. 1097, 22 Ariz. 116, 1921 Ariz. LEXIS 111, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jarnagin-v-edwards-ariz-1921.