Also known as: parol de ley · paroles de ley · words of law · parol evidence
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Technical words or phrases peculiar to legal discourse and instruments.
Phuong Pham sold land to Paragon Construction under a contract containing an integration clause. After closing the deed omitted several negotiated repair obligations. Paragon sought to enforce the omitted promises. The court treated the deed's technical language as the final expression and refused to admit the earlier statements.
Pedro Pacheco and Precision Tools signed a detailed supply agreement with an express merger clause. When Pacheco later claimed an oral side term existed, the court first examined the writing's completeness. Finding the document a complete integration, it excluded the extrinsic statement.
Perry Pratt conveyed property by absolute deed to Peak Performance to secure a loan. When Pratt repaid the debt the lender refused to reconvey. The court admitted evidence that the deed's formal language was intended only as security and ordered reconveyance.
Pilar Pena purchased a lot subject to recorded covenants. Later grantees argued the restrictions did not bind them because their own deeds omitted the language. The court held that the technical words in the original recorded instruments controlled and bound all subsequent purchasers with notice.
In February 1964, Alpine Slopes Development Company conveyed Lot 101 of Alpine Meadows Estates Subdivision No. 3 in Placer County to Ernest H. and Jewel Riley by grant deed recorded on March 13, 1964. The deed contained no restrictions upon the use of the plaintiffs’ property nor any reference to any instrument purporting to impose restrictions upon Lot 101. At the time of the conveyance there was no document of record purporting to restrict the use of Lot 101. Nine months later, on November 25, 1964, the grantor recorded a declaration of covenants, conditions, restrictions and reservations on lots 72 through 116 of the subdivision. The declaration recited that the grantor had established a general plan for the improvement and development of the property and set forth 26 numbered paragraphs of restrictions, covenants and conditions, including paragraph 6, which required submission of plans and specifications to the Bear Creek Planning Committee and its approval before any dwelling, garage, building, fence, wall or other structure or excavation could be commenced or maintained. At a time not established by the record the Rileys constructed a snow tunnel on their lot. On January 12, 1972, the committee recorded a notice of violation of covenants, conditions and restrictions that referred specifically to Lot 101 and the declaration recorded November 25, 1964, and recited the probable violation of paragraph 6 in that a covered walkway had been constructed without prior compliance. The Rileys filed a complaint to quiet title and for damages for slander of title. The planning committee and some of its members cross-complained for declaratory relief. The trial court entered judgment quieting title in the Rileys against all claims of defendants and ruling for the Rileys on the cross-complaint. The Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, affirmed the judgment. The California Supreme Court granted a hearing for the purpose of giving further consideration to the issues raised.
View casePenelope Price sued in federal court on a state-law claim after the federal claim was dismissed. The court applied the state statute of limitations to the remaining claim. It treated the technical language of the state rule as controlling the timeliness question.
In May 1930 the Van Sweringen Corporation issued $30,000,000 in notes under an indenture naming Guaranty Trust Co. of New York as trustee with power to enforce noteholders' rights. In October 1930 Guaranty and other banks advanced large sums to companies affiliated with the Corporation and controlled by the Van Sweringens. When the Corporation could not meet its obligations, Guaranty participated in an exchange plan under which noteholders could surrender their notes for cash equal to 50 percent of face value plus twenty shares of Van Sweringen stock per $1,000 note; the offer remained open until December 15, 1931. In 1934 respondent York received $6,000 of the notes as a gift from a donor who had not accepted the exchange offer. In April 1940 three accepting noteholders filed the Hackner suit in federal court charging Guaranty with fraud and misrepresentation in connection with the exchange. York's motion to intervene was denied, and summary judgment for Guaranty was affirmed on appeal. On January 22, 1942, after her exclusion from the Hackner litigation, York filed the present class action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of non-accepting noteholders. The complaint, resting exclusively on diversity of citizenship, alleged that Guaranty had breached its trust by failing to protect noteholders' interests when it assented to the exchange offer and by failing to disclose its own self-interest. The district court granted Guaranty's motion for summary judgment on the authority of the Hackner decision. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that a federal court sitting in equity is not required to apply the New York statute of limitations that would govern an identical suit in the New York state courts. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View casePriscilla Parks executed a will that appeared unambiguous on its face. Heirs offered evidence that the scrivener had made an error in the technical language. The court admitted the extrinsic evidence to establish the testator's actual intent.
Alicia Erickson, the daughter of decedent Ronald K. Erickson, appealed from a trial court judgment that affirmed the Probate Court’s decree admitting her father’s will to probate in favor of defendant Dorothy Erickson, the executrix of the estate. On September 1, 1988, the decedent executed a will while unmarried and the father of three daughters. Two days later, on September 3, 1988, he married the defendant. He died on February 22, 1996. The will named the defendant as executrix and guardian of the decedent’s daughters and included among its beneficiaries the defendant’s four children—Thomas Mehring, Christopher Mehring, Maureen Mehring, and Kathleen Mehring—whose identities the trial court admitted into evidence. The plaintiff filed a motion in limine before trial seeking to limit proof to the will, the marriage certificate, and the death certificate. The defendant responded with a detailed offer of proof concerning the decedent’s intent and his communications with his attorney. The trial court granted the motion in limine as to most extrinsic evidence of intent but denied it regarding the beneficiaries’ identities. It then concluded after a de novo hearing that the will’s provisions and the two-day interval between execution and marriage supplied clear and convincing evidence that the instrument accounted for the contingency of marriage. The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, which transferred the case to the Supreme Court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199 (c). The defendant cross-appealed the evidentiary ruling excluding the balance of her proffered proof.
View caseIt refers to technical words or phrases that carry specialized legal meaning.
The parol evidence rule limits the effect of prior statements when a writing uses technical legal language that the parties adopted as complete.
Courts admit evidence showing an absolute deed was intended only as security when the technical words alone do not reflect the parties' true arrangement.
Yes. Courts may receive extrinsic evidence to correct scrivener errors in the technical language of a will when the writing does not match the testator's intent.