Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. West

• Decision Date: 23 November 1897
• Citation: 49 N.E. 344,57 Ohio St. 161
• Parties: BALTIMORE & O. R. CO. v. WEST.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

49 N.E. 344

57 Ohio St. 161

BALTIMORE & O. R. CO. v. WEST.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

November 23, 1897

Error to circuit court, Erie county.

Action by one West against the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.

On the 1st day of April, 1887, the parties in this case entered into a written agreement, by which the defendant in error let to the plaintiff in error certain premises in the city of Sandusky, ‘for the full term of five years next ensuing, and fully to be completed and ended on the 29th day of March, 1892’; the plaintiff in error agreeing to pay rent for the premises ‘during the said term of five years at the rate of three hundred and eighty-six dollars per year, payable monthly.’ The written instrument was not acknowledged by either of the parties, nor was it recorded but the plaintiff in error entered into possession of the premises under it, and continued in their occupancy, paying the rent according to the stipulations of the agreement until the expiration of the term of five years. After the expiration of that term, without any new agreement or arrangement with the defendant in error, the plaintiff in error held over, continuing in the possession of the premises, and paying rent therefor at the rate and in the manner provided in the written instrument, until the 1st day of September, 1892, at which time it abandoned the premises without the consent of the defendant in error, and refused to pay rent thereafter. The defendant in error, claiming that he was entitled to the rent for the whole of the year ending March 29, 1893, notwithstanding the abandonment of the premises, brought his suit therefor after the expiration of the year, and, upon the foregoing state of facts, recovered a judgment for the amount of the rent from September 1, 1892 to March 29, 1893, at the rate fixed by the written agreement, with interest. That judgment was affirmed by the circuit court, and the plaintiff in error seeks a reversal in this court.

Syllabus by the Court

1. An entry under a lease for a term of years at an annual rent void for any cause, and payment of rent under it, creates a tenancy from year to year upon the terms of the lease, except as to its duration.

2. Where, after the expiration of the term, the tenant holds over and pays rent for a part of another year, without any new agreement with the landlord, he becomes a tenant for that year at the same rent, and cannot terminate the tenancy before the end of the year without the landlord's consent.

3. The obligation of the tenant to pay the rent for the year, in such case, is not within the statute of frauds; the holding over being equivalent to a new entry.

J. H. Collins, for plaintiff in error.

Charles L. Hubbard, for defendant in error.

PER CURIAM.

It is the claim of the plaintiff in error that the written agreement was invalid as a lease for the stipulated term of five years, because of the failure to have it acknowledged and recorded, and that by entering into the possession of the premises, and the payment of rent, the plaintiff in error became merely a tenant at will, or at most a tenant from month to month, which also continued to be the character of the tenancy when the plaintiff in error held over beyond the term, so that upon quitting the possession at the end of the month of August, 1892, its liability ceased. The wellsettled rule appears to be, however, that, where the lessee enters into possession of the demised premises under a lease for a term of years at an annual rent, if the lease for any cause be void he becomes a tenant for a year, at the rent reserved in the lease, and subject to all of its provisions except its duration, and when his possession is continued into the next year a tenancy from year to year is created and continues so long as he enters upon a new year, until the end of the term; and this is so though the rent be payable quarterly or monthly, or at shorter periods. And when, after the expiration of the term, he holds over into another year, without any new agreement or arrangement with the landlord, the latter may treat him as a tenant for that year, at the same rent, and upon the terms and conditions of his prior...