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111 Kan. 396

Kratz v. Padfield

Supreme Court of Kansas

Decided June 10, 1922

Supreme Court of Kansas · decided 1922-06-10

<p>Appeal from Sedgwick district court, division No. 2; Thornton W. Sargent, judge.</p>

Relies on Bodwell v. M. Heaton & Co. · Schaffer v. Mills

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1922-06-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently January 1948

5 state decisions

30192219301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1*397The opinion of the court was delivered by

Burch, J.:

¶2The action was one to recover money according to the provisions of a written contract. The defendant prayed for reformation of the instrument on the ground it did not express the agreement of the parties. The court denied reformation, and rendered judgment for the plaintiff. The defendant appeals.

¶3In deciding the matter of reformation, the court said:.

“Contracts are reduced to writing to avoid just such a muddle as we have gotten into. Mr. Padfield signed this contract after reading it, and he is held to have understood it and known all that was in it, whether he actually did or not. He contends that certain provisions ought to be. inserted, and the contract reformed to contain those provisions. Now, the law requires that evidence establishing those facts should establish them beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . You have not proved by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that this contract should be reformed, and I shall so hold.”

¶4There was substantial evidence that no mistake was made in the preparation of the instrument, and substantial evidence that after the execution of the instrument the parties conducted themselves in accordance with its terms. The standard of cogency which the court applied to the proof is the standard recognized by this court in such cases. (Bodwell v. Heaton, 40 Kan. 36, 18 Pac. 901; Schæffer v. Mills, 69 Kan. 25, 76 Pac. 436.)

¶5The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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