194 A.D. 523 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1920
Appellant owns the apartment house known as 120 West Seventieth street, borough of Manhattan, city of New York, and on the 14th of February, 1917, it leased an apartment therein to a tenant for a term commencing October 1, 1917, and ending on the 30th of September, 1920, by a lease in writing in and' by which the tenant covenanted that at the expiration of the term he would quit and surrender the premises. At the expiration of the term the tenant refused to vacate and the appellant duly applied to the defendant, who is a justice of the City Court, by petition, pursuant to the provisions of sections 2234 and 2235 of the Code of Civil Procedure, for the institution of a summary proceeding for the removal of the tenant under subdivision 1 of section 2231 of said Code. Defendant refused to entertain the application on the ground that the proposed proceeding was not authorized by the provisions of chapter 942 of the Laws of 1920 (adding to Code Civ. Proc. § 2231, subd. la), which forbids the institution of puch proceeding excepting in certain cases therein speciSed. and.
“ In placing the obligation of contracts under the protection of the Constitution, its framers looked to the essentials of the contract more than to the forms and modes of proceeding by which it was to be carried into execution; annulling all State legislation which impaired the obligation, it was left to the States to prescribe and shape the remedy to enforce it. The obligation of a contract consists in its binding force on the party who makes it.- This depends on the laws in existence when it is made; these are necessarily referred to in all contracts, and forming a part of them as the measure of the obligation to perform them by the one party, and the right acquired by the other. There can be no other standard by which to ascertain the extent of either, than that which the terms of the contract indicate, according to their settled legal meaning; when it becomes consummated, the law defines the duty and the right, compels one party to perform the thing contracted for, and gives the other a right to enforce the performance by the remedies then in force. If any subsequent law affect to diminish the duty, or to impair the right, it necessarily bears on the obligation of the contract, in favor of one party, to the injury of the other; hence any law, which in its operation amounts to a. denial or obstruction of the rights accruing by a contract, though professing to act only on the remedy, is directly obnoxious to the prohibition of the Constitution. * * * The obligation of the contract between the parties, in this case, was to perform the promises and undertakings contained therein; the right of
Although broad language was there used which might indicate that a party was entitled to the particular remedy existing at the time of contracting, it must be read in the light of the prior admission in the opinion that it was left to the States to prescribe and shape the remedy. That opinion and like doctrine in other cases have nob been regarded as limiting the authority of the Legislature with respect to changing statutory remedies; and in respect to such remedies, at least, the general rule is that contracts are deemed to have been made subject to legislation changing the remedy for the enforcement thereof. (Van Rensselaer v. Snyder, supra; Conkey v.
In Laird v. Carton (supra) a statute authorizing an execution against wages was sustained as applicable to judgments obtained before its enactment, although at the time the contract was made and the judgment recovered, no such liability to have execution issued against one’s unpaid and unearned wages existed.
The point that no adequate remedy remains will be met by our decision in Guttag v. Shatzkin (194 App. Div. 509), decided herewith, wherein we are deciding that the remedy by ejectment remains. The claim that taking away this remedy deprives the plaintiff of the equal protection of the laws (U. S. Const. 14th Amendt. § 1) is also answered by that
It follows that the order should be affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.
Clarke,. P. J., Dowling, Merrell and Greenbaum, JJ., concur. *
Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.