Case Name: Richardson vs. Thompson, Administrator
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1839-12
Citations: 1 Hum. 151
Docket Number: 
Parties: Richardson vs. Thompson, Administrator.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Reports
Volume: 20
Pages: 151–155

Head Matter:
Richardson vs. Thompson, Administrator.
It ig a rule of both law and equity that the terms and extent of an agreement under seal shall not be enlarged or diminished, contradicted or varied by parol proof.
The exceptions which have been made to this general rule are of doubtful policy, and the court will not extend them.
A reversion after the determination of a life estate cannot be created by parol in a ease of a conveyance of slaves purporting to be absolute.
Samuel Richardson, a citizen of Gibson county, Tennessee, filed this bill in the chancery court of M-’Minnville, in the middle division of the State, on the 5th of December, 1837, against James P. Thompson, the administrator of Thomas Hopkins, deceased, praying that certain slaves, to wit, Jesse, Amy, Fielding, Shadrach, Letitia, Sally, Nancy, Celia and Jacob, and their increase, twenty-two in number, be decreed to be delivered up to him by the administrator aforesaid to be emancipated.
It appears that in the year 1814, Richardson, then a resident of the county of Rutherford, Middle Tennessee, being hostile to slavery and averse to the holding and management of slave property, conveyed by bill of sale dated the 12th January, 1814, the eight negroes above specified to Thomas Hopkins, his brother-in-law, then a resident of Warren county, Tennessee. The bill of sale was absolute on its face, acknowledging the receipt of twenty-six hundred dollars for the sale and delivery of said slaves to Hopkins, and warranting the title of said slaves to Hopkins against himself, his heirs, administrators, executors and assigns, and against the claim of all other persons whatsoever. It also appears that Hopkins sold one of the slaves in his life-time, and that on the 3d day of October, 1825, he become embarrassed and conveyed one family of the slaves mentioned in the first bill of sale back to Richardson, who took them with him to the western district, being nine in number. The instrument by which they were re-conveyed obligated Richardson to pay to Hopkins four thousand five hundred dollars for the nine slaves three years from the date of the conveyance, with the ex press understanding that said sum might be discharged by re-delivery of the slaves to Ho plans at any time he (jeiTianc[ them. In th® course of the time specified in tjie ¿ee¿ this instrument was taken up by the return of seven of the slaves, Richardson retaining two of them. In 1836 Hopkins died intestate, having in his possession the said slaves, with the exception of one sold and two left in the possession of Richardson, in Gibson county. James P. Thompson obtained letters of administration upon his estate from the county court of Warren.
The complainant alleges in his bill that his brother-in-law was a man of known humanity, considerable wealth, advanced in life, and that he had no children; that under such circumstances, he being opposed to slavery and averse to holding them, yet being unable to surrender all his means of worldly support, he received from Hopkins the sum of sixteen hundred dollars for said slaves, and executed to him the bill of sale above mentioned upon the express condition and trust that said Hopkins should keep them together, not sell them, and provide at or before the death of him, said Hopkins, that said slaves should be emancipated or re-conveyed to him or to his representatives; that Hopkins had promised him to re-purchase the slave sold, but had died without so doing or making provision for so doing, or for the emancipation of the others mentioned in the conveyance; and that the administrator had refused to emancipate them.
The answer denied the condition and trust alleged in the bill of complainant, and claimed the slaves as the absolute property of the legal representatives of the deceased. To this answer the complainant filed a replication. The proof taken was of an unsatisfactory and inconclusive nature in regard to the verity of the parol trust alleged in the bill and denied in the answer. Hugh Robertson testified that after the bill of sale was executed Hopkins stated to him that he had “Richardson’s negroes;” that it was generally understood in the neighborhood that Hopkins was to emancipate them at his death; and that Hopkins at one time stated to him that he had returned “Richardson’s negroes.” There was other testimony tending to show that Hopkins held them some fifteen or twenty years as his own.
After several continuances by the complainant, at the July term, 183S, the cause was set for hearing by the defendant’s solicitor. The complainant moved the court, chancellor Bramlett presiding, that the cause be continued and opened for further proof, and laid his grounds in an affidavit which set forth that the fact of the trust could be clearly and fully proved by the individual therein named; and that he had discovered his testimony at so late a period that he could not have the same in readiness. The court refused to continue the cause; and being of the opinion that the trust alleged in said bill could not be raised or sustained by parol proof, dismissed the bill.
The complainant appealed to the supreme court.
Laughlin, for complainant.
Ridley, for defendant,
cited Kich. and Oar. 350, act of 1801, ch. 25: 2 Black. Com. 398: 2 Kent, 2ded. 352: 2 Yer-ger,585: Payne vs. Lassiter, 10 Yerger, 507.

Opinion:
Reese, J.
delivered the opinion of the court.
The bill in substance alleges that in 1814 the complainant, by an absolute bill of sale, for the consideration of sixteen hundred dollars paid to him, although the bill of sale states a consideration of two thousand six hundred dollars, conveyed to the intestate of defendant certain negroes; that the sale was in fact only for the life of the intestate, he having agreed at the time of the sale that he would emancipate the negroes during his life or at the time of his death, or in default thereof they should return to and re-vest in the complainant upon the death of intestate; and the bill prays that the negroes may be decreed to be surrendered to the complainant for the purpose of being emancipated. The answer affirms the belief of the defendant that the consideration stated in the bill of sale was paid to the complainant; that it was the full and adequate value of the negroes at the time of the sale, and that the sale was absolute; denies all knowledge of the alleged condition or limitation, and asserts an utter'disbelief of its existence. The cause remained eighteen months in a state for taking testimony when it was set for hearing, and application was made to the chancellor on the part of complainant to open the cause for further testimony, and an affidavit filed stating that the allegations of the bill could be established by the testimony of a witness named. The chancellor, however, refused the motion, and on the hearing dismissed the bill, and the complainant has prosecuted his appeal to this court.
We have not deemed it necessary to consider whether upon the ground stated in the affidavit, after the delay which had occurred, the chancellor ought to have opened the case for further testimony. We should in any case enter with much reluctance upon a supervision over the exercise of the legal' discretion of the chancellor touching such a question. We have considered this case as-if demurrer had been filed to the bill, and stripping the question of all that is sáid on the subject of emancipation, which is really foreign to it, for the controversy is about the title to the property, and the aspect in which the case presents itself, is an attempt to show by parol testimony that a conveyance' absolute on its face was for life only. This attempt is met by the maxim and general rule, early adopted and recognized alike in courts of equity and courts of law, that the terms and extent of an agreement under seal shall not, by the admission of parol proof, be contradicted or enlarged, diminished or varied. This rule was adopted upon the principle that the contracts of parties, deliberately written and solemnly authenticated by their seals, can safely be evidenced and perpetuated only by such instruments themselves; and that to permit the enlargement, diminution or change of their terms, to be made out by the frail and treacherous recollections of witnesses, would be to rpalce the instruments themselves, useless, the rights intended to be secured by them uncertain and doubtful, and would furnish a strong temptation and incentive to perjury and fraud. The rigor, however, of the rule has been in many cases relaxed; for it was found that under the protection of the rule itself the fraudulent might gain ad vantages, and that in the formation of contracts, however solemn, the necessitous would yield to oppression, and the ignorant and rash blunder into mistake. So parol testimony came to be heard to vary the terms of an instrument upon the ground of fraud, accident or mistake; and so also to guard against and prevent usury, absolute conveyances were allowed to be shown to be mortgages and security for money-. The.cases, however, upon these exceptions to the general rule, present a most vexed and perplexing branch of legal learning, the precise limits to the exceptions in application to particular cases contracting or enlarging according to the peculiar cast of thought or state of legal metaphysics of each individual judge; so that it may well be doubted whether the interest of society, and the honor of the law as a science, claiming a reasonable degree of certainty, would not have been alike promoted by a rigid adherence to the severe simplicity of the general rule.
We are admonished by these considerations not to go beyond the distinct limits of the exceptions which have already been created by the judgments of the courts in the decided cases. The present is a case falling within none of those exceptions. It is an attempt to create a.'reversion by-parol after the determination of a life estate, in a case of a conveyance which purports to transfer the absolute title to the property in fee. To permit this would not only open a door to fraud and perjury, but it would render insecure and doubtful our most solemn assurances, and the property of all would depend not upon seals and parchments but upon the forbearance of the unscrupulous and the corrupt.
We entertain no doubt, therefore, that the decree of the chancellor is correct, and it is accordingly affirmed.