152 P. 1185 | Utah | 1915
(after stating the facts as above).
During the- winter of 1907-08, two men, A. II. Birrell and J. M. Evans, who were engaged in the real estate business in Salt Lake City, learned that the municipal authorities of said city were contemplating moving the proprietors and keepers of houses of ill fame and the women living therein from the then “red light district,” so called, on Commercial street, to a “restricted” red light district in some locality within the city limits where the presence and avocation of this class of people would, in the opinion of the municipal authorities, be less offensive to public morals than on Commercial street. It seems that they also learned from some of the city’s officers that the' center of block 64, between First and Second South and Fourth and Fifth West streets, had been tentatively
That before the execution of the lease she called at the office of Birrell and Evans in company with her brother-in-law, J. R. Boyd (who also at the time was negotiating with Birrell and Evans for the sale of property owned by him in block 64), with the view of leasing to them the property in question; that she there learned for the first time that there was a move on foot to establish a red light district in block 64; that Birrell said to her, “We have been purchasing property all through the block, and are going to establish a red light district down there, and there is a woman in Ogden, good reliable woman, plenty of money, plenty of backing, property of all descriptions, and it is her that wants your property”; that he said he would put it into the lease that it would not be used for immoral purposes; that “after him, saying he was going to establish a red light district in there, I wanted counsel before I would consent to anything, and he says, ‘All right, you get your attorney, bring him over,
She further testified:
“He told me there was a wealthy woman in Ogden who was going to look after that district. She was the party who wanted to lease my property. He wanted to get it for her. Q. And that party was Mrs. Topham? A. Yes, sir. Q. To whom you made the lease? A. Yes, sir.”
The evidence shows that at this interview between Birrell and respondent, which took place about June 1, 1908, the terms of the lease were agreed on. On June 12, 1908, the parties met at the office of the attorney of the Citizens’ Investment Company, a corporation, and signed the lease. Appellant in the meantime (about June 1st) had taken possession of the premises in question, employed several lewd, abandoned women, and placed them in the upstairs rooms of the building, and was using and occupying the same as a brothel or house of ill fame, On this point the appellant, whose testimony is not disputed, testified:
“We were in the building prior to the signing of the lease” in the attorney’s office. ‘ ‘ The building was being used at that time for sporting girls. I rented several rooms to the girls. * * * I had my office there all summer and part of the winter of 1908-. ' The building was occupied for a sporting house of prostitution. ”
As hereinbefore stated, four months’ rent ($1,000) was paid by appellant to respondent at the time the .lease was signed. This paid the rent from June 1 up to and including September 30, 1908. From September 30 up to and including the month of June, 1909, respondent received the rent ($250) each month from the attorney of the investment com
“I heard of the suit in the fall of 1908 and spring of 1909. Of course, I read it in the newspapers; knew they were in court repeatedly attempting- to close the stockade. After July, 1909, I went to Mrs. Topham’s office occasionally. I was there myself a number of times. I can’t tell how many. Q. When you went there you saw her in the stockade office didn’t you? A. Yes. Q. You knew- that they were then trying to close the stockade’s use for prostitution purposes at the time you went for the lease money? A. Yes, sir. Q. You went there and collected rent right along, didn’t you? A. After that (July, 1909) I went and collected the rent.”
She also testified that she knew a high wall was built on the west side of her property to cut off the premises that were being used as a stockade from adjoining properties.
Some time prior to-November, 1912 — the date is not disclosed by the record — appellant moved out of the stockade, leaving the upstairs rooms of plaintiff’s property, which were being used and occupied by lewd women for prostitution, in charge of a sporting woman by the name of Ross. Oh and after November 11, 1912, respondent went to the stockade and personally collected rent for the upstairs rooms from the Ross woman. Several witnesses testified that they conversed with the respondent about the time the lease was signed, and that she was informed and knew that Mrs. Top-ham intended to and would occupy and use the upstairs rooms of the property in question for a brothel and a house of ill
She “built the notorious stockade with its hundreds of cribs and vile dens of sin, iniquity, vice, and ungodliness, where depraved humanity basked in all of its most horrifying and vicious .forms. She published herself to the world as trafficking in sin to such an extent that the whole community arose up against her and had her vile dens removed. * * * Her life of shame and dishonor had been paraded before the public for twenty years. She was known throughout the community and believed generally to be guilty of all the vices a wily, cunning, crafty, and depraved woman could resort to. The nature of her vile business presupposes that either directly or indirectly she personally, or through her parasitical emissaries, resorted to all the infamies known to her associates in the underworld. * * * Bell London! (Alias by which appellant was generally known.) How comprehensive this name! London — the Metropolis of the World. Bell— the Bell of that Metropolis; the King Pin of the Tenderloin; the Mother of Harlots; the Queen of the Underworld; the Refuge of Crooks and Criminals; the Despoiler of Homes; the Enemy of Virtue; the Promoter of Vice. * * * For twenty-four years, without regard for and in defiance of the laws of God and the laws of man, she admittedly carried on her vile and corroding business, a conspirator in crime, a promoter of iniquity? As this woman looks back upon her past life, what terrible scenes must force themselves upon her! How the pallid faces of myriads of fallen women and weak men, vizored in sorrow, scourged and blotched in face and form by prostitution’s poisonous fangs, must, like a nightmare hot from hell, in a horrible dream, appear in ghastly form before her. But, unlike the nightmare of a horrible dream, it shall not pass away. * * * One only need go to the stockade and see the cribs this woman built for human beings to inhabit by wallowing in filth and corruption, and the imagined respect and forced confidence in this woman’s
But counsel argue that: ble for Mrs. Boyd to lease it to other than a foreign
Now, if the foregoing observations made by respondent and her counsel correctly reflect the evidence bearing on the character and dissolute life of appellant and the publicity of the resort, the condition and the manner in which it was maintained — and we are not prepared to say that- they do not— then it is idle for respondent or her counsel to contend that she honestly believed that any part of the resort was occupied and used by “respectable tenants.” In the opinion of the writer a landlord who knowingly permits his leased premises to be used by the tenant in violation of the penal statutes of the state or of the ordinances of the municipality in which the property is situated is just as culpable from a moral point of view as the tenant. It would be a work of supererogation to cite the many authorities which hold that contracts of the kind here involved, under which the penal statutes of the state or the ordinances of a municipality are violated with the knowledge of the lessor, cannot, on ground of public policy, be enforced. When it developed at the trial that respondent must have known that the leased premises were being occupied and used as a brothel, the court, even though its action was not invoked by either party, should have stopped the proceedings and dismissed the action.
The cause is remanded, with directions to the trial court to vacate the judgment and dismiss the action.
Costs to appellant.