Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

121 Miss. 482

Martin v. Partee

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided March 15, 1920

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1920-03-15

Hon. Joe May, Chancellor. Suit by Chas. W. Partee, Jr., against S. E. Martin. Prom a decree for complainant, defendant' appeals. The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court. The line of authorities relied upon by the plaintiff below, setting up the rule that parol evidence is not admissible to contradict a written instrument, is not applicable to this case. This rule is never applicable in matters of consideration.

Relies on Baum v. Lynn · English v. New Orleans & North Eastern R. R. · Thompson v. Bryant

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1920-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently January 1967

5 state decisions

2019201930194019501960decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Smith, C. J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2' This is an appeal from a decree awarding the appellee, who was complainant in the court below, damages because of the breach by the appellant of a covenant of *488warranty contained in a deed executed by the appellant to the appellee. The appellant 'lives in the State of Tennessee, and the suit was begun by an attachment under the provisions of section 537, Code of 1906 (Hemingway’s Code, section 294).

¶3The appellant sold certain land to the appellee by a warranty deed executed on the 4th day of September, 1917; the consideration therein set forth being five thousand dollar in cash, the assumption by the grantee of an indebtedness amounting to twelve thousand dollars due by the grantor to a third person and secured by a deed of trust on the land, and the execution by the grantee to the grantor of several promissory notes aggregating the sum of fifteen thousand dollars. The appellant failed to pay the taxes due on the land for the year 1917; consequently the appellee was compelled to do so himself, and, upon the appellant declining to reimburse him therefor, he instituted this suit.

¶4The appellant’s defense is, and he sought, but was not permitted, to introduce parol evidence to prove, that at the time of the execution of the deed the appellee agreed as a part of the consideration therefor to assume the payment of the taxes on the land for the year 1917. The warranty contained in the deed, being general, covers all incumbrances on the land, including the taxes for the current year. Section 2817, Code of 1906 (Hemingway’s Code, section 2318); Swinney v. Cockrell, 86 Miss. 318, 38 So. 353. And to admit the evidence sought to be introduced by the appellant would not only import a new element into the contract, to wit, a promise by him to pay the taxes on the land for the year 1917, but would also contradict the express language of the deed itself, by excluding the taxes for that year from the covenant against incumbrances therein contained; consequently no error was committed by the court below in excluding it, for, while a consideration recited in a written instrument merely as a fact may be varied *489by parol evidence, the terms of the instrument itself cannot he. Baum v. Lynn, 72 Miss. 932, 18 So. 428, 30 L. R. A. 441; Thompson vs Bryant, 75 Miss. 12, 21 So. 655; English v. Railroad, 100 Miss. 575, 56 So. 665.

¶5Where a deed contains a covenant" against incumbrances, the authorities are conflicting as to whether or not the assumption by the grantee of the incumbrance may he shown by parol evidence. -3 Ency. Evidence, 386; 2 Devlin on Deeds (3 Ed.), section 914. But the rule in this state is that such evidence is inadmissible. Maxwell v. Chamberlin, 23 So. 266.

¶6Affirmed.

/121/miss/482 · .json · Public domain