Also known as: parol de ley · paroles de ley · words of law · parol evidence
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Technical words or phrases peculiar to legal discourse and instruments.
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Phuong Pham sold land to Paragon Construction under a contract containing an integration clause. After closing the deed omitted several negotiated repair obligations. Paragon sought to enforce the omitted promises. The court treated the deed's technical language as the final expression and refused to admit the earlier statements.
Pedro Pacheco and Precision Tools signed a detailed supply agreement with an express merger clause. When Pacheco later claimed an oral side term existed, the court first examined the writing's completeness. Finding the document a complete integration, it excluded the extrinsic statement.
Perry Pratt conveyed property by absolute deed to Peak Performance to secure a loan. When Pratt repaid the debt the lender refused to reconvey. The court admitted evidence that the deed's formal language was intended only as security and ordered reconveyance.
Pilar Pena purchased a lot subject to recorded covenants. Later grantees argued the restrictions did not bind them because their own deeds omitted the language. The court held that the technical words in the original recorded instruments controlled and bound all subsequent purchasers with notice.
Penelope Price sued in federal court on a state-law claim after the federal claim was dismissed. The court applied the state statute of limitations to the remaining claim. It treated the technical language of the state rule as controlling the timeliness question.
Priscilla Parks executed a will that appeared unambiguous on its face. Heirs offered evidence that the scrivener had made an error in the technical language. The court admitted the extrinsic evidence to establish the testator's actual intent.
It refers to technical words or phrases that carry specialized legal meaning.
Supporting sources
The parol evidence rule limits the effect of prior statements when a writing uses technical legal language that the parties adopted as complete.
Courts admit evidence showing an absolute deed was intended only as security when the technical words alone do not reflect the parties' true arrangement.
Yes. Courts may receive extrinsic evidence to correct scrivener errors in the technical language of a will when the writing does not match the testator's intent.
…do not have the consequences that a decision to terminate a person's life does. At common law and by statute in most States, the parol evidence rule prevents the variations of the terms of a written contract by oral testimony. The statute of frauds makes unenforceable oral contracts to leave property by will, and statutes…