January v. Stephenson

• Decision Date: 16 May 1876
• Citation: 2 Mo.App. 266
• Parties: D. A. JANUARY, Respondent, v. FANNY B. STEPHENSON, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

2 Mo.App. 266

D. A. JANUARY, Respondent,

v.FANNY B. STEPHENSON, Appellant.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

May 16, 1876.

1. A landlord's right to evict a non-paying tenant under the “Landlords and Tenants” act (Wag. Stat. 877) will not be affected by the fact that the lease is held by a trustee for another. The landlord has no concern with the condition of the trust, and no occasion for equitable inquiry into it. The trusteeship merely serves to describe the person with whom he has contracted.

2. The jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, for the purpose of restoring possession to the landlord, covers all cases of rent in arrear, without reference to the amount claimed. But the additional power to render judgment for the sum due from the tenant is limited by the general law regulating the jurisdiction of justices of the peace in suits for the recovery of money.

APPEAL from St. Louis Circuit Court.

Affirmed.

R. S. Voorhis, for appellant.

W. F. Boyle, for respondent, cited: Willi v. Peters, 11 Mo. 395; Sheppard v. Martin, 31 Mo. 492; Harley v. McAuliff, 24 Mo. 85; Sweeney v. Mines, 31 Mo. 240; Walker v. Northern C. M. Co., 5 De G., M. & G. 629; Wag. Stat., ch. 85, sec. 32.

LEWIS, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a proceeding under the “Landlords and Tenants” act, to recover possession of leased property for non-payment of rent. Wag. Stat. 882, secs. 32, and following. The complaint was in due conformity with the statute, and was originally filed against the present defendant and John B. Gibson as her trustee. At the hearing before the justice the suit was dismissed as to Gibson, and judgment was obtained by plaintiff for possession of the property and costs of suit.

In the Circuit Court, on defendant's appeal, the cause was submitted on a motion to dismiss, accompanied by an agreed statement of facts, which included a copy of the lease. It thus appeared that, on April 2, 1860, plaintiff leased the premises to James N. Stephenson and John B. Gibson, trustees for Fanny B. Stephenson, for a term of forty years, with sundry stipulations as to payments of rent, etc., of no material significance in this controversy; that James N. Stephenson had died before the institution of the suit; that the defendant had come into possession of the premises under the lease referred to, and was so in possession at the commencement of the suit; that the sum of $300 was due for rent, and that payment thereof had been demanded of defendant by plaintiff's agent, and was refused. The court overruled the motion to dismiss, and rendered judgment in plaintiff's favor for possession of the premises, and 1 cent damages.

Defendant claims that the justice had no jurisdiction of the cause, because “the leasehold is purely a trust estate, created by deed, and is peculiarly within the province of equity jurisdiction.” It is argued that the proceeding should be by “bill in equity, where all the parties to the deed can be brought in, and their respective rights adjusted upon the forfeiture declared.”

If there were here any controversy between the trustees and the cestui que trust, there might be some ground for the position assumed. But the landlord is simply pursuing a statutory remedy upon his lease, in which he knows nothing of any trusteeship, except as it may serve to describe the person with whom he has contracted. “The relation between the owner of land and those who occupy it is of a purely legal character. The circumstance that there is a relation of an equitable character subsisting between the lessee and the actual occupier cannot give any equitable rights to one who claims by a...