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In Ban-Co Inv. Co. v. Loveless, 587 P.2d 567, 573 (Wash. Ct.
App. 1978), the Washington Court of Appeals emphasized that to be
admitted under the parol evidence rule, parol evidence should not
vary or contradict that which has been reduced to writing but
must be additional to and consistent with the contents of the
document. The court stated:
People have the right to make their agreements partly
oral and partly in writing, or entirely oral or
entirely in writing; and it is the court’s duty to
ascertain from all relevant, extrinsic evidence, either
oral or written, whether the entire agreement has been
incorporated in the writing or not. That is a question
of fact. [Id. at 572.]
In this case, the disputed testimony was offered not to
prove the circumstances under which the written leases were
executed but rather to prove that the parties to the leases
intended to include the Dobbe residence in the leases.
Petitioners argued that the leases were not complete and that
more property was covered by the lease agreements than was
explicitly stated therein. Petitioners argued, in the
alternative, that the testimony proves that petitioners agreed
upon a “second oral lease” leasing the Dobbe residence to Holland
America.
Because the disputed testimony was offered, in part, to
expand the scope of the leases in a manner inconsistent with and
beyond that clearly stated therein, in violation of Washington
State’s parol evidence rule, see Berg v. Hudesman, supra, we
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