Court Opinion

ID: 9740276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:31:33.683301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:17.239274
License: Public Domain

*283McCown, J.,
concurring in result.
In this case, the plaintiffs failed to plead or prove that the parties had agreed orally that performance of the contract was subject to the happening of a stated condition. In any event, under the evidence in the record at the time the plaintiffs submitted the check to the defendant’s agent, John M. Maple, on August 1, 1977, the contract was completely integrated.
I am concerned, however, with the holding of the majority opinion that if an oral condition precedent is inconsistent with or contradictory to the written instrument, parol evidence thereof is not admissible. That holding runs counter to the modern position reflected in Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 243 (Tent. Draft No. 6, 1971), which states:
§ 243 INTEGRATED AGREEMENT SUBJECT TO ORAL CONDITION.
Where the parties to a written agreement agree orally that performance of the agreement is subject to the happening of a stated condition, the agreement is not integrated with respect to the oral condition.
Comment b to that section states:
b. Condition inconsistent with a written term. The rule of this Section may be regarded as a particular application of the rule of Section 242(2) (b), giving effect to consistent additional terms omitted naturally from a writing. So regarded, it has sometimes been limited to conditions consistent with the written terms. But an oral condition is never completely consistent with a signed written agreement which is complete on its face; in such cases evidence of the oral condition bears directly on the issues whether the writing was adopted as an integrated agreement and if so whether the agreement was completely integrated or *284partially integrated. Inconsistency is merely one factor in the preliminary determination of those issues. If the parties orally agree that performance of the written agreement was subject to a condition, either the writing is not an integrated agreement or the agreement is only partially integrated until the condition is met. Even a “merger” clause in the writing, explicitly negating oral terms, does not control the question whether there is an integrated agreement or the scope of the writing.
Boslaugh, J., joins in this concurrence.