Opinion ID: 777182
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Earlier Drafts of the Dealer Agreements

Text: 37 As a preliminary matter, the district court decided that it could not consider the earlier drafts of the Dealer Agreements because of the parol evidence rule. We note, first, that the parol evidence rule is a doctrine of contract law, not of evidence law. Chavez v. Dir., Office of Workers Comp. Programs, 961 F.2d 1409, 1413 (9th Cir.1992). 38 Generally, extrinsic evidence cannot be used to contradict the terms of an integrated unambiguous written agreement. See Gumport v. AT & T Techs., Inc. (In re Transcon Lines), 89 F.3d 559, 568 (9th Cir.1996); Wilson Arlington Co. v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 912 F.2d 366, 370 (9th Cir.1990). However, El-Khoury sought to introduce the earlier agreements not to contradict the terms of the agreement but, instead, to shed light on the parties' intent as to the importance of a sales-tax violation to their franchise relationship. The parol evidence rule does not bar consideration of the earlier drafts of the contract for that purpose. See 3 Arthur L. Corbin, Corbin on Contracts § 576, at 384 (West 1960) (stating that the parol evidence rule does not bar evidentiary consideration of earlier draft agreements in deciding issues other than the terms of the agreement). 39 In other words, we consider the earlier agreements not in deciding whether Chevron had a right to audit tax records, but only in deciding whether Chevron thought that right was so important that it must be spelled out separately in the Dealer Agreements. Of course, many inferences could be drawn from Chevron's elimination of the provision. However, drawing all inferences in El-Khoury's favor, a jury could conclude that Chevron agreed to delete the mention of tax records because it did not think that tax compliance was important to the franchise relationship.