54 Minn. 144 | Minn. | 1893
Action for rent. Plaintiffs owned a wood and coal yard in Minneapolis, and May 15, 1890, rented the same to defendant for two years, to commence July 1, 1891, at the rent of $450 per year, quarterly in advance. The defendant paid the first quarter’s rent, and the action is for the succeeding four quarters’ rent. A tenant of plaintiffs, whose term, as we infer, expired
On the question whether the former tenant continued in possession by consent of defendant, or without such consent, and whether such possession excluded defendant from such beneficial possession as, under the lease, she was entitled to have, the evidence made a fair case for the jury; and we must assume that those facts were found in favor of the defendant, and, according to the theory of law on which the case was tried, such being the facts, she had a right to abandon the lease. The fact that she tried, ineffectually, to get possession from the former tenant, and tried, unsuccessfully, to rent the premises to him, and that pending such effort, and before she knew that plaintiffs had re-rented the premises to such former tenants, she paid to them the first quarter’s rent, was not a waiver of her right to be put in possession by them, (assuming it to have been their duty to put her in possession,) nor could any estoppel to assert that right against them be based on those facts.
The defendant, against plaintiffs’ objection, was permitted to prove that about the time her term commenced she rented the premises to another at $600 a year, and that her lessee, finding that he could not get possession, threw up his lease. As plaintiffs’ theory was that, because defendant unjustifiably refused to abide by her lease, they had a right to rent the premises for such rent
Order affirmed.