Case Name: STEPHENS-ADAMSON MANUFACTURING COMPANY, A CORPORATION, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, v. MOSES BIGELOW AND GEORGE B. SWAIN, TRADING AS BIGELOW & SWAIN, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1913-06-09
Citations: 84 N.J.L. 585
Docket Number: 
Parties: STEPHENS-ADAMSON MANUFACTURING COMPANY, A CORPORATION, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, v. MOSES BIGELOW AND GEORGE B. SWAIN, TRADING AS BIGELOW & SWAIN, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 84
Pages: 585–586

Head Matter:
STEPHENS-ADAMSON MANUFACTURING COMPANY, A CORPORATION, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, v. MOSES BIGELOW AND GEORGE B. SWAIN, TRADING AS BIGELOW & SWAIN, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.
Submitted March 20, 1913
Decided June 9, 1913.
Where contracting parties have put their contract in writing, the written agreement, if complete on its face, is the only evidence of such contract. Oral testimony is admissible only where the written contract is not complete and does not purport to cover the whole contract.
On appeal.
Before Justices Trenchard, Parker and Voorhees.
For the plaintiff, Wimmer & Wimmer and Samuel J. Macdonald.
For the defendants, Hugh B. Reed.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court ivas delivered by
Voorhees, J.
In the trial of a District Court suit founded upon a written contract, dated May 12th. 1911, for the sale and purchase of machinery, the following clause occurred : "The time of delivery (which is to .be the date of shipment from our works at Aurora, Illinois), to be about from receipt by us of your acceptance of this proposal and final information necessary for completion of order."
There was a plea of recoupment. The court heard parol testimony regarding the time of delivery, but finally struck it out as not admissible. Naumberg v. Young, 15 Vroom 331, is in point upon this question. It holds that the written agreement, if complete, is the only evidence of the contract between the parties, and that parol evidence of such contract is admissible only where the writing is not complete and does not purport to cover the whole contract.
The contract under review left in blank the time of delivery <jf the purchased machinery, and so it appears that the consideration of the testimony of witnesses as to it was clearly within the rule. See also the following cases: Bruce v. Pearsall, 30 Vroom 62; Emmett v. Penoyer, 151 N. Y. 564; Camden Iron Works v. Fox, 34 Fed. Rep. 200; Dunnett v. Slack & Gibson, 78 Vt. 439. The action of the court, therefore, in excluding it amounted to error as far as defendants' base was concerned and is sufficient to warrant a reversal.
But again the court found an acceptance of the goods within a reasonable time except as to the large pulley, and that the plaintiff had credited the value of this article at the contract price made by the parties, but ignored the testimony which tended to prove the purchase of another pulley at- a cost of $129.12. The court thereupon found for the plaintiff, allowing to the defendants the credit given them by the plaintiff on the state of demand. I think this was a question of fact and should have been treated as such. It was not so done, but the credit was considered as establishing between the parties all that the defendants could claim. This again was error.
There must be a reversal and a new trial ordered.