Court Opinion

ID: 9603028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:02:42.228793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:07.989260
License: Public Domain

HALL, Justice:
I concur with that portion of the majority opinion which remands the case for the purpose of determining the amount due appellant for his agistor’s lien. However, I respectfully dissent from that part of the opinion which holds that the “assignment and assumption agreement” satisfied the promissory note executed by Abbott in 1974. The joint venture entered into by the parties had absolutely no effect upon this previous transaction. The agreement which terminated the joint venture made no mention of the previously executed note and it was neither surrendered to Abbott nor destroyed.
The “assignment and assumption agreement” related only to the joint venture as indicated by its very terms:
THIS AGREEMENT made and entered into by and between Weldon S. Abbott and Mary R. Abbott, hereinafter known as assignees, and Paul Christensen and Leah Christensen, hereinafter known as assignors.
WHEREAS, the parties are purchasers under that certain Purchase Sales Agreement dated April 26, 1974, between the above-said parties and Joseph Haslem, Ruth P. Haslem, John Haslem and Clyde Haslem, as sellers, and
WHEREAS, assignors desire to assign all of their right, title and interest in and to said contract to the assignees, . (Emphasis added.)
The majority opinion correctly notes that there is no requirement that an accord and satisfaction be in writing. But this one was in writing and it provided for the termination of the joint venture without making even passing reference to the note or the cattle purchased by its execution.
The trial court erroneously admitted pa-rol evidence to alter an unambiguous writing. I deem the following holding of this Court to be dispositive of the situation we are now called to rule upon:
when the parties have reduced to writing what appears to be a complete and certain agreement, it will *904be conclusively .presumed, in the absence of fraud, that the writing contains the whole of the agreement between the parties. Also, that parol evidence of contemporaneous conversations, representations or statements will not be received for the purpose of varying or adding to the terms of the written agreement.1
The question is therefore one of law and not one of fact as construed by the majority opinion. I would reverse and remand not only to determine the amount due on the agistor’s lien, but to enter judgment for appellant on the note.

. State Bank of Lehi v. Woolsey, Utah, 565 P.2d 413 (1977) citing Bullfrog Marina, Inc. v. Lentz, 28 Utah 2d 261, 501 P.2d 266 (1972).