Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/818

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

806 FEDERAL REPORTER. �of said Joel Hester to plaintifE was contraoted before the said writin^ was resoinded. �Upon this allegafion issue was joined, and, after the testi- mony'was ail in on both sides, the court instructed the jury to find for plaintiff. A motion is nowmade for a new trial upon the ground that the demurrer to the original answer was improperly sustained, and upon the further ground that the issue joined upon the amendment above quoted should have been left to the jury. This motion bas been eonsidered by the fuU bench, at the request of Judge Krekel, who pre- eided at the trial. �BoUford e Williams and Mack J. Leaming, for plaintiff. �L. H. Waters and James LimUrd, for defendants. �MoCrart, C. J. 1. It is insisted that the bond sued on, and the original contract by which defendant Joel Hester was appointed as agent for plaintiff to sell sewing machines, were entered into at one and the same time, and are parts of the same transaction, and that therefore they should be construed together as constituting one contract, and it ia said that, being so construed, the liability of the obligors upon the bond should be limited to the transactions embraced within the contract. That the two instruments were in- tended to be and were parts of the same transaction, does not appear from anything contained in either. So far as we can gather from the contents of the papers themselves, they were separate, distinct, and independant. It is more than doubtful whether, in such a case, it can be shown by paroi that the parties intended anything more or less than appeara from the terms of the writing. If, however, it were com- petent in this way to explain this writing, it certainly would be a violation of long-settled rules to admit paroi proof to add to or vary the terms of the written instrument, and this was in effect what was attempted. The bond binds the obligors "to pay, or cause to be paid, any and every indebtedness or lia- bility now existing, or which may hereafter in any manner exist, or be incurred, on the part of said Joel Hester to the said the Singer Manufacturing Company." Tho contract con- tains nv^thing to the contrary of this. The effect is, there- ��� �