Knight's Estate
Knight's Estate
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The auditor found upon a full and discriminating review and analysis of the evidence that the actual intent of the parties, as
Considerable stress is laid upon the fact that the scrivener testified upon cross-examination that he wrote the contract the way he was directed to, “twenty-five acres more or less,” and that after the agreement was written, he read it over to them and they said it was all right. From this it is argued that the witness was uncertain as to what was actually said, and that in giving his testimony he was putting his own interpretation upon the words used by the parties instead of giving the words themselves. We do not so understand his testimony. Throughout the whole of it he insisted that the grantee was to have the tract for twenty-five acres, that that was what the parties said. The doubt, if any, arising from his cross-examination is, not as to what they said and directed, him to write, but as to his interpretation of what he wrote. That he believed then, and when testifying, still believed, that what he wrote was in legal effect the same as if had included the words, “ not to be surveyed,” is not to be wondered at. He was not a lawyer and had never written an agreement before. So, also, the parties appear to have signed the contract in the belief that it expressed in legal effect the terms upon which they had orally agreed. There is not the slightest evidence outside the paper itself that either had a different intention when the agreement was signed. On the contrary, if the testimony of these witnesses is to be believed, it is clear that they contemplated a sale and purchase of the described tract as and for a twenty-five-acre tract for which the respondent was to pay $35.00 per acre. They signed the contract in the belief that nothing more was required in order to ascertain the price of the whole tract. (Whether they failed to notice that the words, “not to be surveyed,” were omitted from the agreemeet or through ignorance supposed that the scrivener’s omission of them was immaterial, there was a mistake, which the orphans’ court, in determining the consideration to be paid and the balance due upon the contract, had power to correct. See Chalfant v. Williams, 35 Pa. 212, Gump’s Appeal, 65 Pa. 476, Jenkins v. Davis, 141 Pa. 266, and Wilson v. Ott, 173 Pa. 253. In Hubs v. Morris, 63 Pa. 367, Mr. Justice Shak.S’WOOD said: “ Free as the courts have been in admitting parol evidence to correct mistakes, that liberality
The decree is affirmed and appeal dismissed at the costs of the appellants.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.