194 Mass. 193 | Mass. | 1907
Upon omitting other provisions relating to the price and the depth that might be necessary to obtain the stated amount of supply, but not material to the principal question involved, the plaintiffs undertook by their contract “ to procure water in the earth above the bed rock” on the defendant’s premises by driving in the boiler room of the factory a pipe two and one half inches in diameter, but if a sufficient amount was not obtained then to “ drill a well not less than six inches in diameter in the bed rock . . . until twenty-five gallons of water per minute is obtained.” They finally procured this volume, but the water was very salt, and generally unsuitable for use in the defendant’s business, and, it being common knowledge that water in its natural state either may be fresh or salt in quality, the defendant contends that as the contract failed to designate the ordinary sense in which the parties must have used the term, oral evidence was admissible to explain and remove the uncertainty. Unless fraud or mistake are shown, where the parties have put their contract in writing, there is a conclusive legal presumption, that it contains the entire agreement in which all previous verbal negotiations concerning the subject matter have been merged. Violette v. Rice, 173 Mass. 82. DeFriest v. Bradley, 192 Mass. 346. But if any of the essential terms of the contract when applied to the transaction concerning which the parties dealt becomes ambiguous, oral evidence is relevant and admissible, not to construct a new agreement, but to ascertain what they understood by the one already made. Stoops v. Smith, 100 Mass. 63. Hebb v. Welsh, 185 Mass. 335. Buffington v. McNally, 192 Mass. 198. These far miliar principles are undisputed, but the difficulty arises in their application, especially where the agreements are drawn by the parties or their business agents, who fail to use clear and exact language to express their mutual understanding. It was the plaintiffs’ interpretation, that they had fully performed their undertaking if the amount of water was procured, even if it was wholly unsuitable either because of saltness or impurity. The
The evidence, therefore, was excluded wrongly, and as there must be a new trial at which the other questions raised by the exceptions may become immaterial, or be presented in another form, we do not consider them.
Exceptions sustained.