240 Pa. 131 | Pa. | 1913
Opinion by
This was an action for the recovery of damages for an alleged unlawful eviction from premises which the plaintiffs claimed they held under a valid and subsisting lease. The premises consisted of a single room, a barber shop, on the first floor of -a building used and occupied as a public hotel. The ownership of the entire
Nothing that appears in the evidence offered on behalf of the defense supplies what was so manifestly lacking in the plaintiffs’ case. Scholder, the person from whom plaintiffs leased, while denying that he had such conversation with plaintiffs as they testified to, distinctly disclaims any agency for the building association in the making the lease to the plaintiffs, and asserts that he was, when so doing, the agent and representative of the New Central Hotel Company, of which he was secretary and treasurer; that the building association by resolution of its board of directors in July, 1905, had authorized a lease of the entire building, including the barber shop, to the New Central Hotel Company, which lease was signed by himself as secretary of the association and the treasurer, pursuant to the resolution; that this lease continued in force until its surrender at the time the city bought the property; that It was during the continuance of this lease 9th August, 1909, that as agent of the hotel company he sublet the barber shop to the plaintiffs.
The case was submitted to the jury to determine where the truth lay as between the conflicting statements of the plaintiffs and Scholder in regard to a matter bearing no relation to the question we have indicated. The verdict shows that the jury accredited the plaintiffs. That, however, established no agency in Scholder for the building association in making the lease to the plaintiffs, bat left the case just where it was when plaintiffs rested in the trial.
The refusal of defendant’s motion for judgment n. o. v. was error, and the judgment is reversed.