Carolina, Cumberland Gap & Chicago Railway Co. v. Seigler

Citations

• 24 S.C. 124

Syllabus

<p>1. A subscription in writing being made to the capital stock of a railroad company, “provided that the line of said road run on the east side of Shaw’s Creek,” oral testimony is inadmissible to shoAV the meaning of the paper; the words óf the piwiso not being susceptible of a double signification, nor shown to be applicable to more than one subject. The rule of evidence involved considered generally.</p> <p>2. Evidence of the location of defendant's lands, if intended to shoAV that the subscription was made with the understanding that the road was to run by these lands, was incompetent because it added terms to the written paper; and if not so intended, Avas irrelevant.</p> <p>3. For the same reason evidence of the location of lands through which the defendants and others had given a right of way, and of the nature of the country through which one of the surveys ran, was improper.</p> <p>4. The complaint having alleged a payment by defendant on his subscription, and plaintiff having given in evidence its president’s version of what was then said in reference to the terms of the subscription, defendant may then be permitted to testify his version of this same transaction.</p> <p>5. Evidence that no work had been done towards grading the road was relevant to the issue of location.</p> <p>6. Declarations of the president of the company at the time of a part payment by defendant on his subscription, may be proved to explain the payment, but cannot be used to affect the written paper of sub. seription.</p> <p>7. A single sentence of the charge, susceptible when detached of a meaning different from that which it has when considered in connection with the context, must be given the latter meaning.</p>