13 N.W.2d 757 | Minn. | 1944
The lease provides that the lessee's "principal business" upon the premises was "the operation and maintenance of a gasoline filling and greasing station." The lessee covenanted that it would not use or permit the premises to be used in violation of any law, ordinance, or regulation of the United States, the state of Minnesota, or a municipal subdivision of the state of Minnesota having jurisdiction thereof. There was no provision in the lease expressly restricting the lessee's use of the premises exclusively to the one mentioned or for the forfeiture of the lease by the lessee in case of breach of covenant or condition, except for the nonpayment of rent. The lessor covenanted that he would not directly or indirectly erect, maintain, or operate a filling station within 300 feet of the leased premises or erect any structure obstructing the front view thereof.
The lease contains a clause giving the lessee an optional right to terminate it, which reads:
"If, during the term of this lease, or any renewal or extension thereof, the use of said premises for an oil and/or gasoline filling station be prevented, suspended or limited by any zoning statute or ordinance, or any other Municipal or Governmental action, law or regulation; or the use of said premises be affected or impaired by the widening, altering, or improving of any streets fronting or adjoining said premises; or should the State or Federal Government reroute any State or Federal highway now adjacent to the premises leased, then lessee may cancel this lease by giving thirty (30) days' written notice to lessor."
The answer sets up as a defense that the defendant exercised its option as lessee to terminate the lease and that by notice in writing given on February 25, 1943, it duly terminated the same as of March 31, 1943, upon the grounds that the use of said premises for *29 an oil "and/or" gasoline filling station was prevented, suspended, and limited by governmental action, law, and regulation of the United States Government under acts of Congress2 and regulations adopted pursuant thereto. These were: First, regulations of the Petroleum Administration for War3 prohibiting the retail sale of petroleum products on credit and the delivery of motor fuel to motorists during more than 12 hours a day or 72 hours a week,4 which were subject to certain exceptions which are not important here; and, second, regulations of the Office of Price Administration5 prohibiting the sale of petroleum and kindred products, rubber tires and tubes, and automobile parts and accessories, except to holders of coupons and certificates authorizing such purchases, and then only in such quantities as may be permitted by administrative regulation. Defendant claimed, and there is no dispute concerning the fact, that the rationing regulations mentioned entirely prevented and suspended its business while it was required to keep its filling station closed and very substantially reduced the volume of the business transacted at the filling station at other times.
The lessee tendered to the lessor the rent due for the month of March, which the lessor refused to accept. *30
Plaintiff demurred to the answer. The demurrer was sustained, and defendant appeals from the order sustaining the demurrer.
In a memorandum made a part of the order, the court below stated that it construed the lease as providing that defendant had the right of termination only for a subsequently enacted or adopted law, ordinance, or regulation directly affecting the physical use of the premises and not one regulating the business transacted thereon apart from its location, and that the regulations in question relate to the business apart from its location and are not regulations of the physical use of the premises where the business was transacted, and held that theuse of the premises for an oil or gasoline filling station wasnot prevented, suspended, or limited by governmental action, law, or regulation.
1. The question whether the wartime statutes and regulations of the federal government prevented, suspended, or limited the lessee's use of the premises for a filling station within the meaning of the clause giving the lessee an option to terminate the lease depends on the meaning of the clause.
Leases, like other writings, should be construed so as to give effect to the intention of the parties as manifested by the words used. A lease is to be construed as a whole. The process of construction involves consideration of the subject matter, surrounding circumstances, the objects and purposes to be accomplished, and the natural meaning of the language used in the lease. Commercial Union Assur. Co. Ltd. v. Foley Bros.
The declared purpose of the lease here is the operation and maintenance by the lessee of a gasoline filling and greasing station upon the leased premises. The lessee's use was to be protected by the lessor's covenants not to erect a filling station within 300 feet of the leased premises and not to erect any structure obstructing the front view thereof. The lessee's option to terminate the lease was for its protection against the contingency of governmental action *31
interfering with its beneficial use of the premises. Parties to a lease may agree that if by reason of governmental action the lessee is prevented from using the premises for the purposes which they contemplated, the lessee shall have the option to terminate the lease, surrender the premises, and be relieved of future liability for rent. Halloran v. Jacob Schmidt Brg. Co.
"Use" of premises by a lessee under a lease for the operation and conduct of a certain business thereon is nothing more than transacting such business. In cases involving a lessee's right to terminate a lease of premises for operating a saloon thereon, the lawful selling of liquor has been held to be the use contemplated. Halloran v. Jacob Schmidt Brg. Co. and Hooper v. Mueller, supra; Conservative Realty Co. v. St. Louis Brg. Assn.
It has been held in numerous cases involving complete frustration of the purposes of a lease by wartime regulations of the kind here in question that the use of the premises is the transaction of business thereon by making sales of merchandise, and that such use is frustrated where the sales cannot be made either because they are prohibited or the lessee is unable to procure merchandise to sell. Lloyd v. Murphy, ___ Cal.App.2d ___, 142 P.2d 939; Colonial Operating Corp. v. Hannan Sales Service, Inc.
"Limit" means to circumscribe, bound, restrict, confine within limits. See 37 C. J., Limit, p. 664. As used here, the word "limited" implies a restriction on the amount of business the lessee could transact in the operation and maintenance of the filling station. "Prevent" means to stop, preclude, frustrate, prohibit. 49 C. J., Prevent, p. 1343. "Prevented" involves a complete stoppage of business. Rowe v. Atlas Oil Co.
The language used in the lease to specify the means by which the lessee's use may be prevented, suspended, or limited as grounds for exercising the option is sweeping and general and comprehends in unlimited degree such diverse things as directly relate to and attach to the leased premises and others which are independent of and can have no connection therewith, but all of which in substantial degree affect the lessee's right and ability to transact the business constituting the use to be made of the premises.
The means enumerated are any zoning statute or ordinance; municipal or governmental action, law, or regulation; widening, altering, or improving a street fronting or adjacent to the premises; and rerouting of any state or federal highway "now" adjacent to the premises. A zoning statute or ordinance is one which regulates by districts the building development and uses of property. In re Opinion of Justices,
Governmental action of a state is any act which a state may lawfully perform or authorize. Markwardt v. City of Guthrie,
It must be obvious that governmental action by law, ordinance, or administrative acts is not confined to action in the nature of real property restrictions, but, on the contrary, includes action affecting the conduct of business independent of and unrelated to the property upon which it is transacted. The federal government, under U.S. Const. art.
While the federal government could not control or regulate in peacetime the use of the premises here involved, it could under its power of taxation and regulation of interstate commerce adopt measures affecting the business transacted thereon. 24 Am. Jur., Gas and Oil, § 141. We take notice that all petroleum products sold at filling stations within the state are produced in other states or countries and find their way here through the channels of interstate and foreign commerce.
The war power of the federal government is plenary and includes the mobilization and utilization of the manpower and resources of the nation and the adoption of such incidental measures as may be necessary to wage war successfully. Hirabayashi v. United States,
The use of the words "any" and "any other" is sweeping in its reach. See Rollins v. Rice,
There are present here provisions which relate solely to the volume of business which might be transacted on the premises by the lessee and which were adopted to afford the lessee an option to terminate the lease if the volume of business transacted was limited by any governmental action, law, or regulation rather than if the use which the lessee could make of the premises as such was thereby restricted. These are the provisions with respect to rerouting an adjacent highway and the negative covenants of the lessor to refrain from erecting or operating a filling station nearby and from erecting a structure obstructing the front view of the leased premises. These provisions do not impose any restrictions upon the use which the lessee might make of the leased premises. In fact, the lessee could continue to use the premises for the purposes for which they were leased even though the adjacent highway were rerouted and the lessor violated the covenants in question. These provisions relate solely to the amount of business which the lessee might transact on the leased premises. The provision with *37 respect to rerouting of adjacent highways was adopted for the purpose of enabling the lessee to terminate the lease if its business was diminished or limited by a diversion of traffic past the station caused by any rerouting of an adjacent highway. When all the provisions are considered together, they unerringly show that the parties had in mind not only governmental action, laws, and regulations restricting the uses to which the property might be put, but also those which affected the amount of business which might be transacted thereon by the lessee; in other words, the meaning is plain that the use of the premises would be prevented, suspended, or limited if the business transactions of the lessee thereon were.
If we keep in mind the object of the lease, which was to provide a place for the lessee to operate its business; a construction of the language in question as meaning a real property restriction affecting the property only and having no relation to the business transacted thereon involves the absurdity that the total deprivation of the lessee's right and ability to transact business would not be an interference at all with its use of the premises under the lease, but would be a total frustration of the use of the premises entitling it to terminate the lease under the doctrine of complete frustration of the objects thereof. It could hardly have been intended by the parties that the lessee's rights should be less under the provision of the lease in question, which was designed to protect it against the very kind of contingency which has arisen, then it would be if there had been no such provision in the lease at all.
The case of Robitzek Inv. Co. Inc. v. Colonial Beacon Oil Co.
Furthermore, there are absent in the Robitzek case the provisions present here, to which we have alluded, showing that the parties had in mind not only governmental action, laws, and regulations *39 relating to the use which the lessee might be permitted to make of the leased premises, but also others relating to the amount of business which it might transact thereon. These, as has been pointed out, relate to the business transacted apart from the leased premises on which the transactions occurred. Those provisions present a different allover picture here from that of the Robitzek case. In the cited case the word "restricted" conceivably might be construed to mean a real property restriction — that is, a restriction of the use of the premises as such. Here, the word "use" refers to the lessee's business transactions upon the premises and means that the use of the premises would be prevented, suspended, or limited if the lessee's business transactions thereon were so affected by the regulations in question. We do not regard the cited case in point.
2. The lessor contends that the words "or any other Municipal or Governmental action, law or regulation" should not be given their ordinary and natural meaning, which has been just pointed out, but that they should be qualified and restrained by the rule of ejusdem generis as being of the same kind as that of the preceding words, viz., "any zoning statute or ordinance." The rationale of the rule of ejusdem generis is that all words in a writing should be given effect if possible; that where specific words enumerating members of a class are followed by general words capable of including the class and others the former would be rendered meaningless if the latter were given their full and natural meaning, since the latter include the former, and that the incompatibility should be reconciled by construing the general words as referring to the same kind as those enumerated by the specific words, and thus give meaning to both. It has been observed that the rule as applied to the construction of statutes is but a manifestation of the common law's aversion to statutes in derogation thereof, and that "usually the legislative intent is directly contrary to the result obtained by the ejusdem generis rule." 2 Sutherland, Statutory Construction (3 ed. by Horack) §§ 4909-4910. See State ex rel. City of St. Paul v. M. St. P. S. S. M. Ry. Co.
"* * * Whilst it [the rule of ejusdem generis] is aimed to preserve a meaning for the particular words, it is not intended to render meaningless the general words. Therefore, where the particular words exhaust the class, the general words must be construed as embracing something outside of that class. If the particular words exhaust the genus there is nothing ejusdemgeneris left, and in such case we must give the general words a meaning outside of the class indicated by the particular words or we must say that they are meaningless, and thereby sacrifice the general to preserve the particular words. In that case the rule would defeat its own purpose."
In the instant case the class or genus was exhausted by enumerating "any zoning statute or ordinance." Zoning statutes and ordinances embrace particular types of legislation having a technical meaning, as already pointed out. No other type of statute or ordinance can be said to be of the same kind. Consequently, under the rule, the general language must be held to apply to other and different kinds of legislation. The inapplicability of the rule of *41 ejusdem generis serves to underscore the comprehensive and unrestricted meaning of the general language "any other Municipal or Governmental action, law or regulation."
Our conclusion is that the answer states facts sufficient to show that the lessee's use of the leased premises was prevented, suspended, and limited by the federal statutes and regulations in question and that it was error to sustain the demurrer.
Reversed.