Warning
Info
- - tl;dr
- - ICRA
- - Facts & Holding
- - DeepDive
0 0
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania - 281 Pa. 320
Tags: Contracts, Parol evidence rule
tl;dr:
Plaintiff claimed that he and Defendant agreed that Plaintiff was going to have the exclusive right to sell soft drinks in the building where Plaintiff was renting space for its store. The term was not in the written agreement.Video Summary
Case Summary
In the 1924 Gianni v. R. Russell & Co. case, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania clarified the parole evidence rule in contract law. This rule focuses on when outside evidence can be used to explain or interpret contract terms.
Gianni, the plaintiff, leased a store from R. Russell & Co. (the defendant), including a clause that the defendant could not rent another store in the building for selling certain goods. After the defendant did lease another store for similar goods, Gianni sued for breach of contract.
The defendant claimed an oral agreement allowed the lease, but the trial court ruled in Gianni's favor. The parole evidence rule meant the oral agreement couldn't be considered as evidence. The defendant appealed, arguing that the oral agreement should be allowed to interpret the lease agreement.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania upheld the ruling, stating the parole evidence rule disallowed the oral agreement as evidence. The rule stops outside evidence from contradicting or altering a complete written agreement. In this case, the court determined the lease was fully integrated, and the oral agreement contradicted it.
This case is significant because it provided guidance on when outside evidence could be used in contract law. It emphasized the importance of a written agreement as the final expression of the parties' intentions, promoting certainty and predictability in contract law.
DeepDiveHighlight a legal term to see the definition
The plaintiff, a tenant, claims that an oral agreement was made with the defendant's agent, giving him the exclusive right to sell soft drinks in exchange for not selling tobacco and paying increased rent. The plaintiff sued for damages for breach of the alleged oral contract and was allowed to recover. The defendant has appealed the decision. The court believes that the alleged oral agreement is relevant to the provisions of the written lease. However, the parol evidence rule states that when parties put their agreement in writing, the writing is the only evidence of their agreement, and parol evidence cannot add or subtract from its terms unless fraud, accident, or mistake is alleged. Evidence of the alleged oral contract is inadmissible under the parol evidence rule if the written contract is the complete contract of the parties and covers the same subject matter. The intent of the parties is determined by whether the particular element of the alleged extrinsic negotiation is mentioned, covered, or dealt with in the writing.
LSD+ Case Briefs
Features
- DeepDive for detailed case analysis
- Over 50,000 existing case briefs
- Instant briefs for another 6,000,000 cases
- Highlight dictionary for legal term definitions
- Social learning with chat and high points
Over 50,000 Cases Briefed
LSD+ gives you access to over 50,000 case briefs, more than anyone else. Be the first to email us the website of a case brief product that offers you more case briefs and we'll give you a free year of LSD+.
14-Day Free Trial
Unlimited access. Read as much content as you want during your trial with no device limitations. Cancel any time during your trial and keep access for the full 14 days.
Integrated Legal Dictionary
Lawyers and judges love to use big words. And Latin, for some reason.
Highlight a legal term in LSD Briefs and get an instant, plain English definition. Try highlighting contract or specific performance. No need to search or read through a list of definitions, simply highlight the words you don’t know and our LSDefine integration will instantly give you a definition to any of over 30,000 legal terms.
DeepDive
DeepDive allows you to explore legal cases like never before. DeepDive offers multiple levels of case summaries, which empowers you to quickly and easily find the information you need to stay on top of readings. Easily navigate through summary levels and click on any text to get more detail, all the way down to the original legal case text.
Brief anything. Instantly.
Our proprietary state-of-the-art system can instantly brief over 6,000,000 US cases. That means we can probably brief that case that your professor assigned last night when she sent you a poorly scanned pdf and told you to read every third paragraph. Or maybe she uploaded it to Canvas and didn’t really tell you to read it, but you know you probably should. Tenure does wild things to good people.
Social Learning with Chat and High Points
Study groups are a great way to learn and explore a case. LSD has chat rooms for each case to let you ask questions across the community and hear what other students struggled with and how they put it all together. Learn the key points of every case from other LSD+ users and share your knowledge with LSD High Points.
Real-Time Brief Feedback
Don’t settle for mistakes in briefs that have been there for 10 years and never fixed. Find an issue or something missing from a brief? Down vote and we will make improvements. All of our case brief editors graduated from from T14 law schools.