200 A.D. 827 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1922
The action is to recover rent for the month of July, 1921, under a written lease of an apartment in premises in the borough of Manhattan, dated on October 6, 1920, for a term of one year and
“ Sixth. That the rent sought to be recovered in this action and referred to in paragraphs ‘ Second,’ ‘ Fourth ’ and ‘ Fifth ’ of the amended complaint herein is unjust and unreasonable, and that the agreement alleged in said paragraphs of the amended, complaint, under which said rent is sought to be recovered, is oppressive.”
The purpose of this defense is to allow the defendant to take advantage of the provisions of chapters 136 and 944 of the Laws of 1920. If, as a matter of law, those statutes apply to this case, then the defense presents a triable issue; therefore, summary "judgment should not be given under rule 113, but the question is properly presented by the motion for judgment on the pleadings.
In People ex rel. Durham Realty Corporation v. LaFetra (230 N. Y. 429) the opinion states: “ The official explanation of the law appended to and submitted with the bill [Laws of 1920, chap. 942] states its purpose and effect to be 1 to do away with the anxiety of the many people in New York who have been served with notices to mové on October 1.’ This declared purpose draws with it the consideration of a group of statutes enacted at the same session to meet a supposed crisis, which are closely related to each other; are a part of the same plan of remedial protection to the tenants in possession on October first, and can be fairly understood only when considered as parts of one comprehensive design.” (p. 437.) The court then summarized the condition and events which led to the legislative investigation, and further said: “ While the inadequacy of housing facilities in cities had become a matter of world-wide concern, in the closely settled metropolis it was a problem of the utmost gravity, calamitous in its possibilities. The Legislature, unequal to the task of caring for all, decided to make the tenants in possession a preferred class by staying until November 1, 1922, all proceedings to dispossess them, except for reasons hereinafter stated, so long as they paid a ‘ reasonable rent,’ which
From these extracts from the opinions of the Court of Appeals and the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, it clearly appears that the intent of the Legislature was judicially declared to be to make a preferred class of those tenants who were in possession of dwellings, apartments or tenement houses when the September Housing Laws of 1920 took effect, namely, on September 27,1920, and to permit them to remain in possession until November 1,1922, so long as they paid a reasonable rent to be ascertained in the manner prescribed in the statute. The only justification for the exercise of the extraordinary power to take control of private property and devote it to a private use, to suspend the ordinary processes of the courts, to impair the obligations of contracts and to interfere with the freedom to contract, was found in the police power of the State in dealing with a public emergency, which the Legislature declared existed. It should be clearly borne in mind that the emergency was not the advance in rents by reason of the housing shortage as a sequence of the World War, for the prices of food, clothing and the other necessities of life had advanced proportionately with the rentals of real estate. The emergency arose from the fact that, by reason of the inadequacy of housing facilities, those in possession were required to pay exorbitant rents under threat of dispossession, and that upwards of 100,000 such proceedings had been instituted in the city of New York. The turning into the streets of 400,000 or 500,000 persons, or the alternative of submission to extortionate demands for rent, created, the emergency. The demand that the tenant submit to extortion, or have his family put upon the street, was held to have interfered with the freedom to contract, as one of the parties was under duress.
If a dwelling or an apartment is offered for rental to a private family for residential purposes (and it is only to such that the laws under consideration apply), it is not thereby devoted to the public use or affected with a public use, so as to bring it within the rate-regulating power of the Legislature. Such property is within the protection of the State and Federal Constitutions. It is true that, in times of calamity or overruling necessity, temporary interference with the control, or an actual appropriation, of such property may be necessary and justified by the emergency. Such interference, however, must be limited to that which is necessary to the occasion. When a subject-matter is within the police power of thé State, its regulation is within the power of the Legislature; but whether the subject-matter is within the police power is a judicial question to be determined by the courts. (Matter of Jacobs, 98 N. Y. 98, 111.) In my opinion this legislation was limited to the immediate emergency, and should not be extended beyond those limits.
In the case under consideration the tenant voluntarily signed the lease and agreed to pay the rent reserved, and paid it without question for eight months. Now, on the theory of duress, he seeks to escape from his contract and have a jury make a contract for
If such an argument can be accepted, why should not the man who bought a suit of clothes from his tailor for $150, which he could have obtained in prewar days for $75, be allowed to refuse to pay, on the ground that the price was -unreasonable, and ask that a jury determine what the tailor is entitled to receive and at what rate he shall continue to furnish him' clothes?
In my opinion the defendant is not within the purview of the statute, and the defense is insufficient in law.
The order will, therefore, be reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, plaintiff’s motion for judgment on the pleadings granted, with ten dollars costs.
Dowling, Smith and Merrell, JJ., concur; Laughlin, J., concurs in result.
Order reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and motion granted, with ten dollars costs.