FAQ 040. What's the 4 corner rule?

The four-corner rule in contract law
Under the ‘four-corner rule’, intention of the parties, especially that of grantor, is to be
gathered from an instrument as a whole and not from isolated parts thereof. Davis v.
Andrews, Tex.Civ.App., 361 S.W.2d 419,423. (Black's Law Dictionary, 5th ed. p.
591) is a relevant source reference combined with the definition and description of square
brackets found in the Plymouth University Foundation Degree guidelines on essay writing.
The law states that contract meaning is derived from and only from within the ‘four corners’ of
the document (which is a ‘box’), but not from an isolated section of it. (Remember that in law,
words and phrases are used precisionally, not generally. The legal phrase "not from isolated
parts thereof" is a precisional statement. In other words, no meaning at all is to be derived
from isolated contents within the ‘box’ of the document. So boxed content within a document
is not to be included as part of the document itself, rendering the document inoperable as a
potential offer to contract. Most governmental documents contain boxes and are therefore
contractually meaningless.
Square brackets inside of the four-corner ‘box’ create an implied ‘inner box’ separated from the
‘outer box’, (i.e., the document itself) grammatically and thus legally isolating the contents of
the ‘inner box’, rendering what is in the inner box as mere reference or comment but non-
substantial, i.e., not directly relevant to the outlying text of the contract in the outer box.
When you bracket the social security number (US) [SSN] / national insurance number (UK)
[NI] or the [zip code] or [post code] or [U.S.] or [UK] or anything else on a legal document
(e.g., account number or taxpayer reference number) you are declaring that it is legally
isolated. This means that it is merely grammatically referential to but not legally intrinsic to the
contractual meaning of the contents of the surrounding document. According to the four-
corner rule, no contractual meaning can be applied to or derived from any ‘isolated parts’
within it.
In this way, you are offsetting or rebutting a legal presumption. Without brackets there would
be a presumption that you are consenting to jurisdiction by virtue of inclusion of the SSN/NI or
zip/post code on the face of the document. Remember that these identifiers are created,
owned and controlled by the state. The square brackets are legally saying, ‘these inner
contents are legally isolated from and not to be construed as part of the legal meaning of the
surrounding contents. I am therefore not to be identified by an SSN/ NI number though it
appears here. I am not a federal citizen or British subject though a zip or post code appears.