Court Opinion

ID: 9564377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:59:21.251253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:22.815820
License: Public Domain

Ruffin, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
Although I concur in the result reached by the majority, I do not agree with all that is said in the opinion. In particular, I disagree with the majority’s apparent conclusion in Division 2 that a signature can never sufficiently identify a guarantor in a guaranty agreement.
“To satisfy the Statute of Frauds, the guaranty must identify the debt, the promisee and the promisor.”1 And, as noted by the majority, “[w]hile parol evidence may be admitted to explain ambiguities in descriptions, it cannot be admitted to supply a description entirely omitted” from the guaranty.2 Applying this rule, we have found a guaranty that omits the name of the principal debtor unenforceable as a matter of law.3
I view the illegible signature in this case as equivalent to a missing term. The agreement provides insufficient information regarding the guarantor — the promisor in this situation — and parol evidence cannot be admitted to supply the missing information.4
5Accordingly, the guaranty agreement does not adequately identify the promisor and violates the Statute of Frauds.
In addition, I question whether the agreement sufficiently identifies the promisees and the debts covered by the guaranty. Under the terms of the agreement, the guarantor must pay sums owed by the principal debtor to any company affiliated with John Deere Company or John Deere Industrial Equipment Company. The guaranty does not designate these “affiliates” or define what type of relationship brings a company within the guaranty. Given this broad, undefined language, I agree with the result reached by the majority.
Nevertheless, I cannot concur with the majority’s determination that, as a matter of law, a guarantor can never be identified by a signature. This sweeping conclusion is not necessary to the issue at hand — whether the signature in this particular guaranty sufficiently identifies the promisor. Furthermore, the cases cited by the majority, Sysco Food Svcs. v. Coleman5 and Workman v. Sysco Food Svcs. of Atlanta ,6 do not support the majority’s proposition. In Sysco, this Court deemed a guaranty agreement unenforceable because the *389agreement did not identify the principal debtor.7 Although the Court also noted that the principal debtor’s guarantor was identified only by signature, the analysis in Sysco does not rest on that fact. Similarly, the Workman decision, which found Sysco controlling, does not establish that a signature can never identify a guarantor.8
Decided July 16, 2003
Kitchens, Kelley & Gaynes, Mark A. Kelley, for appellant.
Alston & Bird, Candace N Smith, Paul J. Kaplan, for appellee.
For these reasons, I concur in the judgment only.

 Roach v. C. L. Wigington Enterprises, 246 Ga. App. 36, 37 (539 SE2d 543) (2000).

 Sysco Food Svcs. v. Coleman, 227 Ga. App. 460, 462 (489 SE2d 568) (1997).

 See id. at 461.

 See id. at 462.

 Id.

 236 Ga. App. 784 (513 SE2d 523) (1999).

 See Sysco, supra at 461-463.

 See Workman, supra at 785-786.