| N.Y. App. Div. | Oct 15, 1899
This action ivas brought to recover certain arrears of rent upon a lease alleged to have been made by the plaintiff and one Charles H.
The question presented arises solely- upon exceptions taken to the rulings of the court in rejecting testimony offered and upon the dismissal by the court of the complaint-at the close of the plaintiff’s case.
It appears that on the 7th day of December, 1892, Webb took a lease of offices- in a building, Nos. 165 and 167 Broadway, owned by the plaintiff, until the 1st day of Hay, 1893, with the option of the renewal of the lease at the time the first rent became due after that time.
The lease-was renewed by Webb, but a portion of the rent upon the new lease was not paid, and it is to recover this unpaid rent that this action is brought. When the original lease was made, Hasbrouck and Webb went to the office of the plaintiff’s agent and had a conversation in regard to leasing the office, in which, at the request of Hasbrouck, the terms upon which the premises would be leased until the 1st of Hay, 1893, were stated to him, and it was further stated by the plaintiff’s agent, that they might have “ an option upon the offices at $2,500 a year, for three years after the first of Hay,” 1893.
It was stated by Hasbrouck that these terms were satisfactory, and thereupon the lease was closed. The plaintiff offered in evidence a letter dated the 27th of April, 1893, addressed to Hasbrouck, calling his attention to the fact that the option given to Hasbrouck for one year from Hay first, at $2,500 per annum, would expire on the first day of February. . The plaintiff’s agent, who wrote the Tetter, testified that he mailed this letter to Hr. Hasbrouck, but he was unable to account for the fact that, although he had mailed it to Hasbrouck, he had the original letter in his possession. The court upon these facts excluded the letter, and the plaintiff had an exception. We think this ruling was hot incorrect. There was the mere statement of the plaintiff’s agent that he had mailed the letter without showing the address to which it was mailed, or that he paid the postage on it, and that statement
The plaintiff further offered two other letters written by Hasbrouck, one dated the 31st of January, 1893, and one the third of June of the same year. These two letters taken together wpuld have shown that Hasbrouek knew of and consented to the lease for one year, from May 1, 1893, at $200 a month, and that he was liable for the rent for that time at that rate. The objections to the letters were not well taken. It is. not necessary that the writing required by the Statute of Frauds to prove a. contract of guaranty should-be made at the timé of making the contract, because the writing is only requisite to make valid proof of the contract. Heither is it necessary that the proof should be in one paper, but.
Van Brunt, P. J., Patterson and O’Brien, JJ., concurred.
Judgment reversed, new trial ordered, costs to appellant to abide event.