Case ID: ill-app_185/html/0577-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice Smith", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John F. Reif, trading as Vortex Blow Pipe Company, Defendant in Error, v. Commercial Cabinet Company, Plaintiff in Error.
    Gen. No. 19,213.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Harry M. Fisher, Judge, presiding.
    Heard in the Branch Appellate Court at the March term, 1913.
    Reversed.
    Opinion filed March 31, 1914.
    Rehearing denied April 15, 1914.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by John H. Eeif, trading as Vortex Blow Pipe Company, against Commercial Cabinet Company, a corporation, to recover for work and materials furnished to defendant under a written contract. The contract was attached to plaintiff’s statement of claim and was written on a letter head of the defendant Company and signed by Louis Kirmse. The defense was that the contract was not the contract of the defendant corporation but the individual contract of Kirmse. To reverse a judgment in favor of plaintiff for $342.57, defendant brings error.
    Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Evidence, § 360
      
      —when parol evidence not admissible to show parties bound by contract. The rule as to the admission of parol evidence of prior conversations relates as well to the introduction of evidence for the purpose of showing who were the parties intended to be bound by a written instrument as to the meaning or intention of the language used in the instrument; and where there is no indication upon the face of the contract that any other persons than those who signed it are intended, the court will not permit extraneous evidence to show that other and different parties were intended to be bound.
    2. Evidence, § 355
      
      —when subsequent acts of party signing contract inadmissible to show who is bound. Admission in evidence of the subsequent acts of a party who signed the contract in his individual capacity to show the construction placed upon the contract by them as to parties intended to .be bound, held error.
    3. Contracts, § 207
      
      —when words in contract do not create ambiguity as to persons bound. Where a person signs a contract on the letter head of a company in his own name, the fact that in writing the contract he used the words “we” and “us” does not create such an ambiguity that evidence of preliminary conversation prior to and contemporaneous with the execution of the contract is inadmissible to show whether the company was the real party to the contract.
    4. Contracts, § 393
      
      —when instruction as to construction of contract erroneous. In an action against a corporation on a contract, an instruction submitting to the jury the question whether or not the contract was ambiguous and in effect telling the jury that a certain act of the person who signed the contract in his individual capacity was an act of the corporation, held erroneous.
    5. Contracts, § 187
      
      —when acts of the parties may be loohed 
      
      to, to aid construction. When a contract is in writing it is for the court to state its meaning, and it is only where there is a doubt as to the proper meaning of the contract arising from the ambiguity of the words or phrases used that the acts of the parties are looked to for aid in construction.
    
      Miller, Gorham & Wales, for plaintiff in error.
    Charles B. Casler, for defendant in error.
    
      
      Seo Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice Smith

delivered the opinion of the court.