195 P. 348 | Or. | 1921
“When the terms of an agreement have been reduced to writing by the parties, it is to be considered
Under this section the defendant contends that the sole and exclusive evidence of the contract is embodied in the writings mentioned, beyond contradiction by the plaintiff.
The latter maintains that, inasmuch as the transaction narrated in the writings took place between its president as an individual, and the mercantile company, it is not binding between the plaintiff, as a corporation, and the defendant, both of whom were strangers to the writings. The controversy is solved by due attention to this clause of the section, “between the parties and their representatives or successors in interest." As to such individuals alone, is the statute conclusive. It has been decided several times in this state that the precept embodied in the statute is not applicable between strangers to the instrument in question or between one of the parties thereto and such stranger. The principle is thus stated in 22 C. J. 1292:
“The rule excluding parol evidence to vary or contradict a written instrument applies only in controversies between parties to the instrument and those claiming under them. It has no application in controversies between a party to the instrument, on the one hand and a stranger to it, on the other, for the stranger, not having assented to the contract is not bound by it, and is therefore at liberty when his rights are concerned to show that the written instrument does not express the full or true character of the transaction. And where the stranger to the instrument is thus free to vary or contradict it by parol evidence, his adversary, although a party to the instrument, must be equally free to do so.”
In brief, on the principal question the plaintiff was not concluded in this action by the writings growing out of its transaction with a stranger to the litigation, and hence there was no error in allowing oral testimony on that subject. The judgment is affirmed.
Aeeirmed. Behearing Denied.