When does California law allow a court to look at parol evidence in a contract dispute? That's a big part of what the parties argued about in appeals court in SCO v. Novell.
Novell claims the APA and amendments are clear within their four corners; SCO claims the documents are ambiguous, so it wants the court to let a jury consider external testimony from its witnesses. The applicable law is California law, so which of them is right? What is the law about this in California?
I stumbled across a case that explains precisely that, Netbula v. Storage Tech. Corp. [PDF], 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12182 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 8, 2008). While we await the decision of the appeals court, the court in this prior case can help us understand what the judges are being guided by.

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