Bank of America, N.A. v. Haag

In Bank of America, N.A. v. Haag, 37 S.W.3d 55, 58 (Tex.App.--San Antonio 2000, no pet.), Thomas Haag opened a "trustee type account" at University Savings for his son's future education. Haag was the only signatory on the account and he was told that his son could not withdraw any money from it without Haag's signature. University Savings went into receivership and NCNB purchased its assets. NCNB changed its name to NationsBank and later to Bank of America. All of University Saving's records were converted into Bank of America's records. During this process, Bank of America did not input the information into its system from the signature cards but instead relied on information reported to it by University Saving's system. For unknown reasons, NationsBank changed the name on the account to read "Eric J. Haag or Thomas P. Haag" but Eric never signed an authorization/signature card for the account. Bank of America permitted Haag's son to withdraw all of the money in the account because the bank showed it as a joint account. Haag brought various causes of action against the bank. The trial court found in favor of Haag. On appeal, the bank argued that the account statements sent to Haag showing the name on the account as "Eric J. Haag or Thomas P. Haag" constituted an unambiguous written agreement which the parol evidence rule prohibits from being contradicted or varied by extrinsic evidence. The court of appeals held that the account statements did not evidence the creation of the account but were a record of information transferred to the bank's system and were not the operative legal document that created the account. Haag, 37 S.W.3d at 58. Since the signature card which evidenced the terms of the agreement between University Savings and Haag was not admitted into evidence, the trial court did not err in admitting Haag's testimony regarding the terms of the account. Id.