Case Name: S. D. King & Co. vs. C. H. Colding
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1841-02
Citations: 1 McMul. 133
Docket Number: 
Parties: S. D. King & Co. vs. C. H. Colding.
Judges: The whole court concurred.
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 26
Pages: 88–88

Head Matter:
S. D. King & Co. vs. C. H. Colding.
Parol evidence is inadmissible to explain a written contract, or to vary it, unless where there is ambiguity.
See Post 467; 2 Strob. 123; 2 Bail 342, 305; 5 Rich 511. An.
Before Evans, J., at Barnwell, Fall Term, 1840.
This was an action of assumpsit on a joint and several note, signed by the defendant and three or four others. The note was for about $3000, dated in December, 1831, and due some months after. The other makers of the note had confessed judgment. On the left hand of the signatures, certain figures in pencil were made in a line with the signatures, which were added up at the bottom, and made the sum for which the note was given. The defendant offered parol evidence to prove the note was given for the sum of the several purchases made by the signers ; that the figures opposite to each name showed the amount of the several purchases, and that at the time the note was made, it was agreed between the payors and payees, that although the note was joint and several, for the whole amount, yet the payors were to be ^severally liable for no greater amount than their respective purchases, as indicated by the figures in pencil. This I rejected, as varying the written contract by patrol ; and the defendant’s counsel gave me notice of appeal.
Bellinger, the counsel for the motion,
being absent, Northrop argued this case. He contended that the figures in pencil were to be considered as a part and parcel of the note, and not a memorandum. If the note had been as a joint note and opposite each signature the amount was placed in figures, parol testimony would be allowed to explain, it being of a doubtful character. He said the consideration should be looked into. Cited here, Harper’s Rep. 293; 1 Bail. 537. Parol evidence was admitted to explain written; 2 Bail. 305; 4 McCord, 469 and 473.
Patterson, contra,
submitted the case without argument.

Opinion:
Curia, per
Evans, J.
The figures in pencil opposite to the names of the signers of the note were probably intended to indicate the amount of the several purchases of each, but there was no repugnance between this and the body of the note. They created no ambiguity, and if they had, it was not such an ambiguity as parol evidence is admissible to explain. The note was a common joint and several note, and the evidence offered was to vary it, to make it a several note of each of the signers, for sums which, when added together, would make up the whole sum which the several signers had jointly and severally promised to pay. This was clearly inadmissible, and the motion is dismissed.
The whole court concurred.