Dutton v. Dutton

• Decision Date: 12 February 1927
• Docket Number: 27,094
• Citation: 253 P. 553,122 Kan. 640
• Parties: LUCY M. DUTTON, Appellee, v. FRED L. DUTTON, Appellant
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

253 P. 553

122 Kan. 640

LUCY M. DUTTON, Appellee, v. FRED L. DUTTON, Appellant

No. 27,094

Supreme Court of Kansas

February 12, 1927

Decided January, 1927.

Appeal from Republic district court; JOHN C. HOGIN, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

1. FORCIBLE ENTRY AND DETAINER--By Whom Maintainable--Landlord After Lease to Third Party. Where a lessee under the terms of his lease refuses to yield possession at the end of his tenancy, an action of forcible detainer by his landlord will lie although a lease to the premises has been executed by the landlord to a third party.

2. SAME--Evidence--Sufficiency. In an action of forcible detainer, the evidence considered and held sufficient to support the judgment.

3. SAME--Trial Generally. Various alleged errors considered and held to be without substantial merit.

Park B Pulsifer and Clyde L. Short, both of Concordia, for the appellant.

A. M. French, of Concordia, for the appellee.

OPINION

HOPKINS, J.:

The action was one of forcible detainer. Plaintiff prevailed and defendant appeals.

The facts are substantially these:

Henry L. Dutton, husband of the plaintiff, owned the land in controversy, consisting of about 130 acres. The defendant his son, was in possession under a verbal agreement by which he was to pay his father one-half of all crops raised on the premises, including one-half of the grain in bin or cribs and one-half the hay in stack. The father was to furnish half the seed wheat, pay one-half the expenses of baling the hay and one-half the cost of threshing the wheat or small grain. Possession was to be delivered on demand. Henry L. Dutton died in April, 1922, leaving a will which was duly probated, under the terms of which the plaintiff, his wife, became the owner of a life estate and entitled to the possession of the property in controversy. On August 1, 1922, a written agreement was entered into between plaintiff and defendant by which defendant leased from the plaintiff the premises for a term of twelve months. The terms of this lease were practically the same as the oral one theretofore existing between the father and son. Under the lease defendant agreed to deliver possession of the property in August, 1923. A dispute arose between the parties in August, 1923, over possession of the farm, and in settlement of the controversy an agreement was entered into August 11 by which it was stipulated that defendant was to remain in possession of the premises until ten days after the close of the spring term of school in 1924. He was to harvest the immature crops then growing. He surrendered possession to the plaintiff of the part of the land that was not then occupied by the growing crops and was to pay one-half of the corn and one-half of the hay. In April, 1924, another agreement was made by which the defendant leased part of the premises in controversy from the first of May, 1924, to the first of September of the same year. Before this agreement expired and on August 25, 1924, another was made, leasing part of the ground until the close of the school year in 1925 and part until August, 1925, and another part until the corn crop should be picked not later than December 20, 1925, and providing for the payment of rent and delivery of possession. Still later another agreement was made covering all the ground then in possession of the defendant, until September 1, 1925. It included the usual terms of lease between landlord and tenant. At the close of the lease period for which defendant had leased the premises, he...