Court Opinion

ID: 9794086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:58:45.588606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:11:32.747783
License: Public Domain

WOLFE, Chief Justice
(concurring in the results).
I concur in the result on the ground that the offering of the testimony excluded by the court was an attempt to vary by parol evidence the terms of the written property settlement agreement executed by the parties. On page 2 of that agreement it is provided:
“It being the intention of these presents and the contract hereinby entered into and the consideration herein specified that the said party of the first part [the appellant] shall and will not make any further demand of property division or interests in any proceeding at law or otherwise, growing out of or by reason of any action of divorce, said first party may institute and prosecute. And the property division hereinafter specified is and shall be in full settlement as complete adjustment of any claim or right whatsoever, either legally or morally said first party shall or may have upon said second party [the decedent], or upon any of his property, as well as any claim or right, legally or morally that the children above mentioned shall or may have therein save and excepting as hereinafter specified.”
It is clear, in view of the above provision, that the parties intended the written agreement to be a complete integration of their previous negotiations and oral understandings in regard to the division of property. The alleged oral promise of the decedent to bequeath $8,500 to each of his children is inconsistent with the integrated contract and is not a matter which might be naturally made the subject of a separate agreement. Corbin on Contracts, § 584; Restatement of Contracts, § 240(1).
*517There being a complete integration in writing, the offered testimony of the appellant and Knox Patterson as to the decedent’s alleged promise to bequeath $3,500 to each of his children was immaterial and properly excluded from evidence by the trial court. See Corbin on Contracts, §§ 578, 581-583; Williston on Contracts, § 633. The Jackson children, although not parties to the integrated agreement, cannot avoid the effect of the parol evidence rule since it applies to third parties as well, Corbin, § 596. This situation does not involve the matter of the children’s support by the father nor his duty to do so, nor the payments for necessaries for the family incurred by the wife. It involves an alleged promise to leave a legacy which a third party beneficiary is attempting to enforce.
My concurrence in the result on the above ground is not to be understood as a disbelief in the validity of the ground relied upon in the prevailing opinion, viz. that the California statute of frauds prevents proof by the appellant of the alleged oral agreement to bequeath property. It is only that I think the above ground is basifc and eliminates entirely any necessity for considering the ground discussed and relied upon in the prevailing opinion.