106 Ga. 434 | Ga. | 1899
Mrs. L. L. Morehead as executrix sued out a distress warrant against Mayer & Crine for $700.00 rent, claimed to be due, for the year 1897, for. certain farming lands in Dougherty county. Defendants filed a counter-affidavit, and, on the trial, put in evidence a lease from plaintiff to th,em, the material parts of which were, that plaintiff leased to defendants the Mud Creek and Walker places oi; farms, from 1893 to 1898, at a rental of $700.00 a year, and the lessees agreed “to keep up all repairs at their own expense, fire and providential causes excepted ”; which lease was signed by plaintiff and defendants. The bill of exceptions states that the “defendants then swore Daniel Mayer, one of the defendants, and Charles Bledsoe, and proposed to prove by them that the gin-house on the said place was destroyed by fire prior to the fall of 1896; that plaintiff was notified of it and declined to rebuild or replace it; that de
In the present case, if the gin-house had been the only property rented, and it had been merely damaged by fire, the landlord, unless otherwise stipulated, would have been bound to repair it; but if it had been totally destroyed by fire, the landlord would not have been bound to replace it, nor would the rent, have abated. What did occur in this case was, that farming-lands, together with all the necessary buildings, including-a gin-house, were rented for a term of years, the tenants expressly agreeing to keep up all repairs, except such as might be-made necessary by fire or providential cause, and the gin-house was accidentally destroyed by fire during the term. It is clear that the tenants, under their contract, were not required to rebuild it. Nor did any implied covenant to rebuild on the part-of the landlord arise from the mere exception of repairs on account of fire and providential cause in the tenants’ covenant, to “keep up all repairs at their own expense.” Was the landlord bound to rebuild the gin-house under the law ? That depends upon whether its rebuilding was necessary to keep the rented premises in repair. The words, “ keep . . in repair,” as used in section 3123 of the Civil Code, are not technical words, but are used in their ordinary sense. The usual meaning of “to repair” is to mend, to restore to a sound state what has-been partially destroyed, to make good an existing thing; not to-make a new thing, such as erecting a new building to take the place of one destroyed. If the landlord was bound to replace the burned gin-house, then she would have been equally bound to have replaced the dwelling, the tenant-houses, the stables,, the barns, all necessary buildings on the farms, had they been burned, and to have replaced them as often as they might have, been destroyed during the term. We do not think the law requiring the landlord to keep the rented premises in repair means that he shall rebuild buildings wholly destroyed by cas
Judgment affirmed.