Cloverdale Co. v. Littlefield
| Decision Date | 23 November 1921 |
| Citation | 133 N.E. 565,240 Mass. 129 |
| Parties | CLOVERDALE CO. v. LITTLEFIELD et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; T. Callahan, Judge.
Action by the Cloverdale Company against Bradford S. Littlefield and another, to recover damages for breach of a provision in a lease giving the lessee the ‘first right’ to a re-lease. Verdict for plaintiff, and defendants bring exceptions. Exceptions sustained.
Defendants requested the ruling, among others, that on all the evidence plaintiff could not recover. The court refused all the requested rulings and charged that as a matter of law the lessee was entitled to renewal of the lease, and that the jury need concern themselves only with the question of damages. He gave no other charge with reference to liability. Defendants excepted to the admission of evidence of damage, to the ruling with reference to liability, and to the refusal of the requested instructions.
Charles R. Elder, of Boston, for plaintiff.
D. T. Montague, of Boston, for defendants.
This is an action of contract to recover damages for the alleged breach of an agreement contained in an indenture of lease, wherein the plaintiff is lessee and the defendants are lessors. The lease was dated November 9, 1914, and ran for a term of three years. The agreement of the lessors reads as follows:
‘The party of the first part agreed to give the Cloverdale Company, party of the second part, the first right to re-lease for a term of three more years at the expiration of the present lease on the same conditions and terms as herein mentioned.’
The plaintiff entered in possession of the premises, and continued in possession during the entire term and for 11 months thereafter, paying rent per month at the rate written in the lease, and at the end of the same 11 months quit and vacated the premises without any compulsion of the defendants. After the expiration of the lease and during the 11 succeeding months, on June 6, 1918, the defendants gave the plaintiff written notice that from July 1 the rent would be advanced ‘as it is worth more to * * * [us] for other purposes'; and thereafter sent the plaintiff monthly bills for the rent at the advanced rate. When the plaintiff vacated the premises the defendants took possession, have themselves continued to occupy them and have not leased or let them to any person, firm or corporation.
Before the expiration of the three-year lease the plaintiff duly notified the defendants of its desire for a re-lease of the premises for another three years upon the same terms and conditions as the lease declared on; the defendants refused to execute a new lease for another three years upon the same terms and conditions as the first lease but demanded a rent in excess of that reserved in the lease. The plaintiff offered evidence...
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... ... prescribed term. R.I. Realty Co. v. Terrell, 254 ... N.Y. 121, 172 N.E. 262; Cloverdale Co. v ... Littlefield, 240 Mass. 129, 133 N.E. 565; Buddenberg ... v. Welch, 97 Ind.App. 87, 185 N.E. 865; 51 C.J. 631; ... Landowners Co. v ... ...
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