Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
The statute of limitations that applies to a contract that is both oral and written is generally that of an oral contract. This is because if essential terms of the contract cannot be fully ascertained from the written contract itself and require oral evidence to be complete, it is treated as an oral contract for the purposes of the statute of limitations.
Illustratively, in Illinois, actions on written contracts are generally subject to a 10-year statute of limitations, while actions on oral contracts have a 5-year statute of limitations. Therefore, for a contract that is both oral and written, the 5-year statute of limitations would be applied.
Moreover, a contract is considered to be written if all the essential terms of the contract are in writing and can be determined from the document itself. If additional oral evidence is needed to make the contract complete, then the contract is treated as being oral under the statute of limitations. However, if parol evidence is not necessary to establish the existence of an essential term, but is used to interpret a term, the contract is deemed a written contract and the ten-year statute of limitations applies. Continue reading ›