This Parol evidence rule, which has been considered as a common law rule, prevent the parties to the written contract from providing any additional extrinsic evidence, which reveals an ambiguity and refines it, in addition to the terms prescribed in the written contract which appears as complete.
The supporting justification to this rule is that since the parties to the contract have signed a final written contract, the extrinsic evidence of the terms and agreements held before should not be taken into consideration while construing the contract, as the contracting parties had already excluded them from the contract. In simple words, one may follow this common law rule to avoid any contradiction with the written contract.
This rule is related to parol evidence, as well as extrinsic evidence in relation to the contract. If even a single term to the contract is finalized between the parties and is finally prescribed in a written form, the other evidence (i.e. parol or extrinsic) will be barred.
For instance, Aakash agrees to sell a car to Rohan,
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In case of both partial and complete integrations, the extrinsic evidence opposing the writing is eliminated, as per the parol evidence rule. Though, in case of partial integration, the supplementing terms to the writing are taken as admissible.
The parol evidence rule is very strong; therefore, while construing a contract, the extrinsic evidence is avoided from being taken into consideration. This provision is known to be as the Four Corners Rule. There are two fundamental rules in this Four Corner Rule:
• First, if the intention of the parties indicates a complete integrated agreement, the court will never consider any parol evidence, and
• Second, the court will only consider the parol evidence, in case the written terms shows any