Court Opinion

ID: 9845333
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:19:13.484907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:01.372460
License: Public Domain

*275HiggiNS, J.,
dissenting:
The parties entered into a written contract that plaintiffs would sell and the defendant would purchase a house and lots No. 12 and 13, in block 4, Shenandoah Park, Charlotte, for $24,500.00. The contract provided: “It is understood that the property will be conveyed subject to such conditions, reservations, and restrictions as appear in instruments constituting the chain of title . . .”
Upon the defendant’s refusal to fulfill the contract, the plaintiffs brought suit for specific performance. The defendant, by answer, admitted the execution of the contract but by way of further defense alleged:
“3. Plaintiffs, through their exclusive sales agent . . . represented .. . that plaintiffs’ property 'had no restrictions that would prohibit its use for business purposes except zoning restrictions of the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, which restricted its use to office and institutional use,’ when in fact by deed recorded in Book 1185, page 248 of the Mecklenburg Registry and by restrictive covenants recorded in Book 1198, page 495 of the Mecklenburg Registry, the use of plaintiffs’ property is restricted to ‘residential’ purposes only.”
The defendant alleged the representations were false and fraudulent, were intended to and did deceive the defendant to its damage.
The record does not indicate the parties contracted otherwise than on equal terms. Regardless of what either’s real estate broker said, or thought, or remembers about restrictions (and lawyers often disagree about their meaning) the parties solemnly contracted in writing that the conveyance would be made subject to such conditions, reservations, and restrictions as appear in the chain of title. By this vital provision the parties agreed and determined by reference to the public records (which neither could change) exactly what conditions, reservations, and restrictions were embraced within their contract. The writing binds the parties to look to the public records and nowhere else for those conditions.
This decision, to which I cannot agree, strikes one of the fundamentals from contract law. It says that a written instrument may be contradicted by parol. If the further defense, which Judge Patton struck from the answer, is restored, the door is opened to defendant to show by parol evidence conditions, reservations, and restrictions other than those which are disclosed by the chain of title. The jury, according to which party’s witnesses swear harder or louder, may make for the parties a contract different from that which they made for themselves.
Heretofore it seems to have been the law that when a contract has been reduced to writing and signed by the parties, their prior negotia*276tions become merged in the written instrument. That written agreement may not be varied, added to, taken from, or contradicted by parol evidence. “As against the recollection of the parties, whose memories may fail them, the written word abides.” Insurance Co. v. Morehead, 209 N.C. 174, 183 S.E. 606.
The plaintiffs’ contentions are that the contract speaks the truth. The defendant contends to the contrary. If its contention is correct, the written word neither abides very long nor with much force.
In order to prevent fraud, the law requires certain contracts — or some memorandum thereof — to be in writing and signed by the party to be charged. Contracts to sell land fall in this category. The purpose of reducing a contract to writing is to avoid any controversy over its terms. Bank v. Slaughter, 250 N.C. 355, 108 S.E. 2d 594. “It is a well settled rule of law that when parties have reduced their agreement to writing, parol evidence is not admissible to contradict it for the reason that the written memorial is the best evidence of what the parties have agreed to.” McLawhon v. Briley, 234 N.C. 394, 67 S.E. 2d 285. I vote to affirm.