Contract

It was settled law that interpretation of a contract was the ascertainment of the meaning which the document would convey to a reasonable person having all the background knowledge which would reasonably have been available to the parties in the situation in which they were at the time of the contract. The background included absolutely anything which would have affected the way in which the language of the document would have been understood by a reasonable man. The law excluded from the admissible background the previous negotiations of the parties and their declarations of subjective intent. Words should be given their natural and ordinary meaning.