145 Ga. 826 | Ga. | 1916
There is a distinction between a present lease and an executory contract to make a lease in the future. Whether a contract contained in a written instrument, or in letters between the parties, is of the one character or the other depends upon the intention of the parties. This intention is primarily to be drawn from the writing itself; and if the written contract clearly and unambiguously shows the intention of the parties to be of the one character or of the other, it is conclusive. But if the written contract is ambiguous or so lacking in clearness as-to be open to construction by the aid of circumstances, such circumstances, including the construction placed upon such contract by the parties very shortly after it was made, may be proved to aid in its correct interpretation, but not to add to or take from the writing, if the latter is in itself complete. Weed v. Lindsay, 88 Ga. 686 (15 S. E. 836, 20 L. R. A. 33); Gibson v. Needham, 96 Ga. 172 (22 S. E. 702) ; Morse v. Southern Ry. Co., 102 Ga. 312 (29 S. E. 865); 18 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 598, 599; 1 Underhill on Landlord and Tenant, 246, § 177 et seq.; Civil Code (1910), § 4268 (1),
2. An owner of improved real estate wrote to a real-estate agent a letter containing the following language: “Referring to conversation of this morning, and in consideration of the sum of five dollars, the receipt
3. While, on the hearing of an application for an interlocutory injunction, the presiding judge can not make a final adjudication of any question of fact, but can pass on the evidence only so far as to decide the question of the grant or refusal of such interlocutory injunction, under the pleadings and evidence in this case there was no error in admitting evidence of the circumstances attending the making of the contract in question, for the purpose of aiding in its construction; nor was there error in refusing to grant the interlocutory injunction prayed.
■Judgment affirmed.