Ogden v. Philadelphia & West Chester Traction Co.

Citations

• 202 Pa. 480
• 52 A. 9
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 550

Syllabus

<p>Evidence — Parol evidence to vary writing — Release of damages — Negligence — Street railways.</p> <p>Where a chancellor would not reform or ought not to reform a written instrument, because of the doubtfulness of the parol evidence to set it aside, he should not permit twelve chancellors in a jury box to nullify it.</p> <p>Where a conductor who has been injured on the line of a street railway company which employed him, invites to his room two officials of the company and executes in their presence and in the presence of his wife, a paper prepared by the officials at the time and read over to him, by which he releases the company from all liability for his injuries in consideration of $20.00, and of the further sum of $1.50 for each day that he may be confined in the house, and is paid such sums, he. is not entitled in a subsequent suit against the company on an alleged parol agreement made at the time of the written agreement and alleged to be the inducement for the execution of the same, to have his case submitted to the jury, where he testifies that the parol agreement was that the company should employ Mm at $1.50 per day for the rest of his life, and this testimony, corroborated by his wife, is absolutely denied by the two officials of the company. In such a case the fact that the company did give him other light employment and offered to continue to employ him as a tollgate keeper, is not corroborative of the alleged parol agreement, where it appears that it was the uniform custom of the company to give to disabled employees such work as they could perform.</p> <p>An agreement by a street railway company to employ a disabled employee the rest of his life at $1.50 per day, is incapable of enforcement because of utter want of precision in its terms.</p>