Cicchino v. Biarsky

• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey
• Writing for the Court: Fulop, D. C. J.
• Citation: Cicchino v. Biarsky, 61 A.2d 163, 26 N.J.Misc. 300 (D. N.J. 1948)
• Decision Date: 01 September 1948
• Docket Number: 4508
• Parties: CARMINE CICCHINO, LANDLORD, v. SAM BIARSKY, TENANT

61 A.2d 163

26 N.J.Misc. 300

CARMINE CICCHINO, LANDLORD, v. SAM BIARSKY, TENANT

No. 4508

District Court of the Second Judicial District of the County of Union, New Jersey

September 1, 1948

For the landlord, Joseph L. Kaplan.

For the tenant, Robinson & Morris.

OPINION

Fulop, D. C. J.

This is a suit by a landlord to obtain possession of a six-room apartment and part of the basement in a two-family house at 215 Conklin Avenue, Hillside, New Jersey. The tenancy is from month to month, terminated by a two months' notice to a rent day. The landlord seeks to obtain possession of the premises for the use of a foster daughter who is living with him and is about to be married.

The foster daughter is known as Louise Rainone Cicchino, although her father's name is Carmine Rainone. Her mother died in 1932 when Louise was four years of age and she has lived with Carmine Cicchino, the landlord, as a member of his household ever since. Cicchino has acted as parent to Louise in all respects during the intervening sixteen years.

The tenant contends that Louise is not a member of Cicchino's immediate family and that the landlord is therefore not permitted to recapture the apartment for her use under the provisions of section 209 (a) (2) of the Housing and Rent Act of 1948, P. L. 464, 80th Congress, chapter 161--2nd session 50 U. S. C. A. Appendix, § 1899(a)(2), which provides in part as follows:

"No action or proceeding to recover possession of any controlled housing accommodations with respect to which a maximum rent is in effect under this title shall be maintainable by any landlord against any tenant in any court notwithstanding the fact that the tenant has no lease or that his lease has expired, so long as the tenant continues to pay the rent to which the landlord is entitled unless * * *"

"(2) the landlord seeks in good faith to recover possession of such housing accommodations for his immediate and personal use and occupancy as housing accommodations, or for the immediate and personal use and occupancy as housing accommodations by a member or members of his immediate family, * * *."

Counsel for the tenant quotes the report of the joint committee of Congress which formulated this legislation, as giving the following definition of the words "immediate family":

"Spouse, father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-grandfather, grandson, granddaughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law."

It is said that this definition is binding upon this court. Chief Justice Case in Flagg v. Johansen (Supreme Court, 1940), 124 N.J.L. 456; 12 A.2d 374, 376, held that:

"The imputed intent of any single member or even of a minority bloc, of the legislature has no significance in judicial construction."

He quoted with approval from the opinion of Chancellor Zabriskie in Keyport Steamboat Co. v. Farmers Transportation, 18 N.J.Eq. 13, 24, as follows:

"The intention of the draftsman of an act, or the individual members of the legislature who voted for and passed it, if not properly expressed in the act, it is admitted, has nothing to do with its construction; the only just rule of construction, especially among a free people, is the meaning of the law as expressed to those to whom it is prescribed, and who are to be governed by it. If the legislator who enacted the law should afterwards be the judge who expounds it, his own intention, which he had not skill to express, ought not to govern."

Chief Justice Beasley in Sooy ads. State, 38 N.J.L. 324, held:

"In construing laws, the court is bound by legal rules, and in order to discover legislative intent, we must look to the statutory language alone, in its application to its subject. We can not go for such purpose to the journals or debates of the legislature, nor to our own memory; the statute must speak for itself, and we cannot add a syllable to what it speaks."

It appears, therefore, that the report of the Congressional committee is not binding, although--

"In the construction of a statute, it is not amiss to ascertain the prevailing climate of the legislative opinion at the time of its enactment and to accord it some deference." V. C. Jayne in Havens v. Mohme Aero Engineering Corp. (1944), 135 N.J.Eq. 386 (at p. 396), 39 A.2d 108, 115.

"Family" has many definitions. Among others, the Merriam Webster gives the following:

"The body of persons who live in one house, and under one head or manager; a household, including parents, children, and servants, and as the case may be, lodgers or boarders: * * *."

Also:

"A group composing immediate kindred, esp., the group formed of parents and children, constituting the fundamental social unit in civilized societies. "

Neither of these definitions seems wholly adequate. We must look to the avowed purpose of the statute. The original regulation was under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 50 U S. C. A. Appendix, §§ 901, et seq. The declared purpose was "to stabilize prices and to prevent speculative, unwarranted, and abnormal increases in prices and rents; to eliminate and prevent profiteering, * * *." The Price Control Extension Act of 1946 and the Housing and Rent Act of 1947, reaffirm these purposes, but, in 1947, the Congress indicated a desire to terminate the controls...