Warning
Info
- - tl;dr
- - ICRA
- - Facts & Holding
- - DeepDive
0 0
Supreme Court of California - 68 Cal. 2d 222
Tags: Contracts, Parol evidence
tl;dr:
The parties entered into a written contract regarding a farm, but then one party claimed that they had agreed to another term that was not reflected in the wVideo Summary
Case Summary
In Masterson v. Sine (1968), a significant case in contract law, the California Supreme Court examined if a ranch buyer could change a contract option to repurchase the ranch through an oral agreement with the seller. The case centered on a dispute about whether the modification was valid and enforceable.
Dallas Masterson and Rebecca Masterson sold their ranch to Medora and Lu Sine. The deed allowed the Mastersons to repurchase the ranch within 10 years, and they later claimed they had an oral agreement with Medora Sine to extend this period and reduce the repurchase price. The Sines denied any oral modification.
The trial court ruled in favor of the Mastersons, finding a valid oral modification. It allowed extrinsic evidence, showing both parties intended to modify the contract orally.
The Supreme Court upheld this decision, applying a liberal approach to the parol evidence rule and finding extrinsic evidence admissible. The court also ruled that the statute of frauds didn't apply as the oral modification was supported by new consideration, with both parties giving up something valuable.
This case is significant as it demonstrates a liberal application of the parol evidence rule, and how courts address modifications, statute of frauds, and consideration in contract law. It is frequently cited and discussed in contract law education.
DeepDiveHighlight a legal term to see the definition
The case involves a ranch with an option to repurchase. The trial court allowed extrinsic evidence to determine the meaning of certain terms and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The defendants appealed, arguing that the option provision was too uncertain to be enforced and that extrinsic evidence should not have been admitted. The court held that the trial court properly refused to frustrate the grantors' intention to reserve an option to repurchase and that extrinsic evidence was properly admitted. However, the trial court erred in excluding extrinsic evidence that the option was personal to the grantors and therefore nonassignable. The parol evidence rule aims to balance the policies of written evidence being more accurate than human memory and the fear of fraud or unintentional invention by interested witnesses. The exclusion of evidence of oral collateral agreements should only occur when it is likely to mislead the fact finder, and the credibility of the evidence should be the basis for the rule.
The dissenting opinion disagrees with the majority opinion that allows parol evidence to be admitted to limit an absolute and unrestricted written option. The parol evidence rule prohibits adding to, varying, or contradicting the terms of a writing by extrinsic evidence. The majority opinion's holding is based on false premises and violates California statutes that expressly declare the option to be assignable. The majority opinion subverts the established rule against contradicting or varying the terms of a writing by admitting testimony that potentially leads to fraud by allowing the defendant optionors to limit, detract from, and contradict the plain and unrestricted terms of the written option.
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.