Court Opinion

ID: 9853693
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:52:22.159042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:00.668484
License: Public Domain

Atkinson, Presiding Justice, and Head, Justice,
dissenting. The majority opinion construes the petition as seeking, by parol evidence, to alter the terms of the deed by making it conditional. We do not think so, but interpret the petition as seeking to explain the consideration, to show that it was not based on the $4000 which appears on its face, and that the consideration wholly failed. It shows that, while the deed recites a consideration of $4000, in fact no actual money consideration was paid, but it was an amount agreed upon as advance payment for legal services, and the services were not rendered. It alleged that the legal services contemplated were that the grantee was to represent the grantor at his trial before a jury, or secure the grantor’s release without a trial, and that he did neither.
*253No. 17512.
Submitted June 12, 1951
Decided July 9, 1951
Rehearing denied July 24, 1951.
“The consideration of a deed may always be inquired into when the principles of justices require it.” Code, § 29-101. “The recital in a deed of the receipt of the purchase-money does not estop the maker from denying the fact and proving the contrary.” § 29-110. “Ordinarily where the statement in a deed as to a consideration is merely by way of recital, the actual consideration of the deed is subject to explanation. • But if the consideration is referred to in the deed in such a way as to make it one of the terms or conditions of the contract, it can not be varied by parol.” Coldwell Co. v. Coward, 138 Ga. 233, 236 (75 S. E. 425); Young v. Young, 150 Ga. 515 (1) (104 S. E. 149). “While parol testimony is inadmissible to alter the terms and conditions of a written contract, it is admissible to show the circumstances under which a note was made, to explain the consideration and show that it was not, in fact, based on the consideration which appeared upon its face, but what its true consideration was.” Anderson v. Brown, 72 Ga. 713 (3); Burke v. Napier, 106 Ga. 327 (32 S. E. 134); Camp v. Matthews, 143 Ga. 393 (85 S. E. 196).
A contract based on promises and conditions as the consideration for other promises and conditions would not permit proof of any consideration other than that expressed in the writing, although either party could set up a failure of consideration. But where the consideration of a deed is stated as $4000, it may be shown that something else was in fact the actual consideration. As was said in Burke v. Napier, 106 Ga. 327, 329 (supra): “The consideration of an ordinary promissory note lies back of its terms and conditions; they spring out of it, but they form no part of it, nor does it form any part of them.”