This is a writ of entry to foreclose a mortgage made by the defendant to William A. Hayward, and assigned to the plaintiff by Hayward by force of a deed. The validity pf this transfer of the mortgage has been already decided. Ruggles v. Barton, 13 Gray, 506. The plaintiff is entitled to his conditional judgment, and the further inquiry is as to the amount due on the mortgage.
The defendant insists that it is to be limited to the amount due on the notes secured by the mortgage, as recited in the condition thereof. The plaintiff claims, in addition thereto, that his assignor, to whose title he succeeds, had a further lien under this mortgage to secure the amount paid by him to relieve the premises from a prior outstanding mortgage thereon executed by Hayward to secure the payment of his promissory note to Samuel Allen for the sum of $390.
If there was nothing further in the case, it would be obviously just, as well as the legal view of the matter, that Hayward should have no claims upon this mortgage for the money paid to Allen to discharge his own note and mortgage. Indeed in so doing he would be only discharging his obligation to Barton.
But at the hearing before the auditor appointed to hear the parties and state the amounts due on the mortgage, the plaintiff proposed to introduce evidence of a verbal agreement between Hayward and Barton at the time of the execution of the deed to Barton, and of the mortgage back to Hayward, to the effect that Barton was to assume the Allen mortgage, and pay the note to Allen, and also to show that the scrivener made a mistake in not so writing the deed.
This evidence was, we think, properly rejected by the auditor. In the inquiry before the auditor, the written document must be taken as proof of the agreement of the parties. If the party alleging error or mistake in the scrivener would avail himself of it, it should have been done by a bill in equity to reform and correct such mistake, and thus present a case upon the deeds which would have made the outstanding mortgage to Allen a proper subject of payment to Hayward in the capacity of a
cited Godfrey v. Watson, 3 Atk. 517; Page v. Foster, 7 N. H. 392 ; Silver Lake Bank v. North, 4 Johns. Ch. 370; Reed v. Reed, 10 Pick. 400; Sparhawk v. Wills, 5 Gray, 423; Stevens v. Miner, 5 Gray, 429 note; Walcutt v. Spencer, 14 Mass. 409 ; Peck v. Hapgood, 10 Met. 172; Stewart v. Clark, 11 Met. 384; Palmer v. Fowley, 5 Gray, 546 ; St. 1856, c. 38, § 1; Canedy v. Marcy, 13 Gray, 373; Gen. Sts. c. 113, § 2; Holland v. Cruft, 20 Pick. 321; Goodrich v. Staples, 2 Cush. 258; Boyden v. Partridge, 2 Gray, 194; Willie v. Lugg, 2 Eden, 80; 1 Fonbl. Eq. bk. 1, c. 3, § 9 & note; Carpenter v. Butter, 8 M. & W. 209; Com. Dig. Estoppel, E. 4.
