Court Opinion

ID: 9829634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:29:45.156678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:03.784861
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In passing upon motion for rehearing, we have concluded that the following should be added to the original opinion:
The writing recites:
■ “The lessor, Roberson, having the land leased for the period of one year, the said J. B. Roberson leases to C. Tom, at the same price he paid to Norton for said lease.”
It is apparent from this language that the life of the lease was the time Roberson had it leased. Tom was bound to know that he got no more by his contract than Roberson himself had. The time for which Roberson liad the section leased being stated in the writing in direct connection with the consideration to be paid by Tom, “the same price as paid to Norton by Roberson,” leaves no doubt that the length of time the lease was to run was the time Roberson’s lease then had to run, and there is nothing in the writing to indicate that Roberson would again lease from Norton, nor that required him to so do; therefore, the time for which the lease was to run being clearly fixed by the writing, it was not ambiguous for that reason.
If the time for which the lease was to run does not clearly appear upon the face of the writing, the contract as written would be ambiguous, as contended by appellant. Willis v. Byars, 21 S. W. 320; Beard v. Gooch & Sons, 130 S. W. 1022; Brincefield v. Allen, 25 Tex. Civ. App. 258, 60 S. W. 1010; Giddings v. Lee, 84 Tex. 605, 19 S. W. 682. So parol evidence was not admissible to vary or add to the contract as written, except upon the theory that some matter under consideration at the time the writing was executed was left out by mistake of the parties to it. This proposition is, we think, properly disposed of by the original opinion.
The motion for rehearing is therefore overruled.