Case ID: mass_165/html/0503-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Knowlton, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Elizabeth M. Wooley vs. Cyrus Cobb & another.
    Suffolk.
    March 3, 1896.
    — April 1, 1896.
    Present: Field, C. J., Holmes, Knowlton, Morton, & Barker, JJ.
    
      Promissory Note— Consideration — Evidence to vary Written Contract.
    
    The cancellation of a note given for money lent to the maker by the payee is a good and valuable consideration for a later note given in renewal thereof.
    At the trial of an action on a promissory note, evidence of an oral agreement that payment was not to be called for until after certain paintings of the maker had been sold is an attempt to vary the written contract by paroi, and is rightly excluded.
    Contract, against Cyrus Cobb and Darius Cobb, upon a promissory note for $413.40, dated April 16, 1892, payable in three months after date to the order of the plaintiff. Writ dated July 9,1894. Trial in the Superior Court, before Dunbar, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in substance as follows.
    There was evidence tending to show that the note in suit was delivered to one Chevalier for the plaintiff; that the consideration therefor was the cancellation of a note of earlier date, which had been given by the defendants to Chevalier, a witness for the plaintiff; and that the consideration for the first note had been money loaned by the plaintiff. During the cross-examination of Chevalier, and in direct examination of each of the defendants, the defendants’ counsel offered to prove that, at the time of giving each of the notes, and as a part of each transaction, it was agreed by and between Chevalier and the defendants that the payment of the notes was not to be called for until after Chevalier had sold for the defendants, who were artists, some of their paintings, and that the note was to be paid out of the proceeds; that payment was to be deferred until that time; and that no suit was to be brought, and nothing was to be done in regard to the collection of the note. The judge excluded the evidence, and the defendants excepted.
    The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; and the defendants alleged exceptions.
    
      C. Cobb, for the defendants.
    
      R. W. Shea, for the plaintiff, was not called upon.
   Knowlton, J.

The consideration of the note in suit was the cancellation of a note of earlier date, given by the defendants for money lent to them by the plaintiff. This was a good and valuable consideration.

The evidence offered by the defendants, to show that at the time of giving each of the notes it was orally agreed that payment was not to be called for until after certain paintings of the defendants had been sold, was rightly excluded. The offer was an attempt to vary the written contract by parol. Adams v. Wilson, 12 Met. 138. Perkins v. Young, 16 Gray, 389. Tower v. Richardson, 6 Allen, 351. Currier v. Hale, 8 Allen, 47.

Exceptions overruled.