161 F.2d 345 | 2d Cir. | 1947
. The Administrator, Office of Temporary-Controls, the present chief of price controls,
The District Court refused the injunction on the ground that the relation of landlord and tenant did not exist between husband and wife. The defendant, however, asserts the additional ground of res judicata because of the proceedings had upon the motions to resettle the state court order. But, whether or not a technical res judicata against the Administrator is possible in a case in which he is not a party and has not intervened, it .has been made yet more clear than when the District Court rejected this defense that the existence of a valid state court judgment of eviction is' no bar to an injunction on behalf of the Administrator in the federal courts even directed against state law-enforcing agents. Fleming v. Rhodes, 67 S.Ct. 1140. This case follows and applies the earlier cases cited by the District Court which had upheld, as against landlords, injunctions to stop eviction by state authority. Porter v. Lee, 328 U.S. 246, 66 S.Ct. 1096, 90 L.Ed. 1199; Porter v. Dicken, 328 U.S. 252, 66 S.Ct. 1094, 90 L.Ed. 1203. These-cases now place beyond dispute the principle that a state proceeding to evict is not an “enforcement proceeding” of which the state courts have concurrent jurisdiction with the federal courts under § 205(c), and hence the federal action is not merely paramount, but is the sole proceeding to enforce the Act in the premises.
Nor do we think the ground taken by the District Court sustainable. The applicable Rent Regulations for the New York City Defense Rental Area, 8 F.R. 13914, are quite inclusive, and do not rest merely on some formal consensual arrangement of leasing. Compare Pfalzgraf v. Voso, 184 Misc. 575, 55 N.Y.S.2d 171, 173; Da Costa v. Hamilton Republican Club of Fifteenth Assembly Dist., 187 Misc. 865, 65 N.Y.S.2d 500, 503. Thus they d.efine a “landlord” to include a “person receiving or entitled to receive rent for the use or occupancy of any housing accommodations,” a “tenant” to include a “person entitled to the possession or to the use or occupancy” of such accommodations, and “rent” to include any “benefit * * * received for or in connection with the use or occupancy of housing accommodations.” Id. § 13(a) (8) (9) (10). Here defendant’s own acts made it indisputable that the transactions came within these broad definitions. By the divorce decree he was to pay her alimony of $35 per week. Being in default in December, 1945, and threatened with court action, he paid her the arrears and then told her that from then on he was charging her $50 a month rent for -the house. So in letters beginning on January 3, 1946, he sent her the alimony, less $50 per month “rent,” which he increased to a net of $85 for February and March. Then in March he notified her that “as agreed” he expect-
Under the circumstances it ill behooves him to say that he did hot establish her as his tenant. The fact that from time to time he was pressing for the state court judgment settling the ownership of the house does not change this result or allow him to eject his wife without the certificate of permission from the Administrator, Rent Reg. § 6(b) (1), which he in fact never sought. Nor do we see anything inconsistent in her affidavit in the state suit, quoted by him, wherein she said, apparently quite truthfully and at a time when she was contesting his claim, that she had not agreed with him “in so many words” to pay him rent. The qualifying words just quoted are significant. The district judge was of opinion that a temporary injunction would violate “every principle of equity and of common sense.” Even so, the law might well require it, as we believe it does. But it does not seem to us equitable or necessarily common sense that a houseowner can receive benefits from an occupant which he himself treats as “rent,” and then evict her, contrary to the situation of other house-owners in the city, merely because of the previous relationship he had sustained towards her. The injunction should issue.
Reversed and remanded.
Pursuant to Executive Order No. 9809, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 601 note, 11 F.R. 14281, upheld in Fleming v. Mo-bawk Wrecking & Dumber Co., 67 S.Ct. 1129.