Real Estate Title v. Lambeth

Citations

• 125 Pa. 549
• 17 A. 450
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 751

Syllabus

<p>(а) Patents were owned by two persons, jointly, each of whom were manufacturing and selling the patented articles in competition with each other when they entered into a written contract, one agreeing to discontinue the manufacture and sale of the articles, in consideration of the payment of royalties to him by the other.</p> <p>(б) The contract so entered into was silent as to the period it was to continue in force, and, when some time had elapsed and after notice, one of the parties refused to continue under it, when the other filed a bill to enforce performance for an account, and for the continued payment of royalties according to its terms.</p> <p>1. In such case, it was competent for the defendant to prove by oral testimony that the parties did not intend to bind themselves for any definite, period of time, but purposely left that to be settled either by a contemporaneous or subsequent agreement.</p> <p>2. The testimony of a single witness, to wit, the person who drew the contract, that it was verbally agreed by the pai’ties at the time that either one could terminate the contract at will, was sufficient, in the absence of festimony to the contrary, to establish that such verbal agreement was made.</p> <p>3. This finding, in connection with the further finding by the master, that the defendant under such parol contemporaneous agreement did terminate the contract, were sufficient grounds for a decree that the plaintiff’s bill should be dismissed.</p>