Lincoln Bldg. Associates v. Barr

• Decision Date: 24 February 1956
• Citation: 1 Misc.2d 560,149 N.Y.S.2d 460
• Parties: LINCOLN BUILDING ASSOCIATES, Landlord, v. Lockwood BARR, Tenant. LINCOLN BUILDING ASSOCIATES, Landlord, v. Joseph JAME, Tenant. LINCOLN BUILDING ASSOCIATES, Landlord, v. Martin STERN, doing business under the name of The Swim for Health Association, Tenant.
• Court: New York City Municipal Court

Page 460

149 N.Y.S.2d 460

1 Misc.2d 560

LINCOLN BUILDING ASSOCIATES, Landlord, v. Lockwood BARR, Tenant.

LINCOLN BUILDING ASSOCIATES, Landlord, v. Joseph JAME, Tenant.

LINCOLN BUILDING ASSOCIATES, Landlord,

v.

Martin STERN, doing business under the name of The Swim for

Health Association, Tenant.

Municipal Court of City of New York, Borough of Manhattan Ninth District.

Feb. 24, 1956.

Rosenman, Goldmark, Colin & Kaye, New York City, by Samuel I. Rosenman, Lawrence R. Eno, Milton Adler, Harvey L. Schein, New York City, of counsel, for landlord.

Abraham Jame, New York City, for Lockwood Barr & another, tenants.

Burke & Burke, New York City, for Martin Stern, tenant.

Jacob K. Javits, Atty. Gen., by Emil N. Baar, Hyman W. Sobell, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., Joseph E. Ruggiero, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel for tenants pursuant to section 71 of the Executive Law.

SHALLECK, Justice.

In these summary proceedings the landlord seeks to recover possession of office premises from its several named tenants on the claimed ground that they held over after the expiration of their terms. Justification for their continued possession as statutory tenants lies solely in the permissive provisions of the Emergency Business Space Rent Control Law, L.1945 ch. 314, as amended, as re-enacted and extended by chapter 701 of the Laws of 1955. This enactment precludes dispossession of a tenant from office premises after the expiration of his lease so long as he continues to pay the rent and otherwise complies with his statutory obligations as a tenant. Section 8551, McK.Unconsolidated Laws.

Each of the tenants has appeared in this proceeding. All have generally denied the allegations of the landlord's petition. The Attorney General, who has appeared herein and also interposed a general denial, defends the legality of the aforementioned statute. Executive Law, § 71.

The landlord challenges the constitutionality of the Emergency Business Space Rent Control Law, L.1955, c. 701. It argues that that law violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, §§ 6 and 11 of the Constitution of the State of New York as well as the contract clause of the former, Article 1, § 10, and the prohibition against taking private property for public use without just compensation contained in the latter, Article 1, § 7.

The substance of the challenged statute is not new. Its source finds root in an emergency of over ten years ago, L.1945, c. 3. It was at a time when the end of World War II was not yet here. The 1945 legislature enacted other comprehensive laws intended to cover living and working premises of most kinds, including offices and retail stores, L.1945, c. 314. These laws, by their terms, were applicable only to cities having populations over 1,000,000 people. Hence they embraced New York City alone.

Constitutional tolerance for such laws was founded firmly in a declaration of public emergency requiring the exercise of police powers by the State. This followed an exhaustive investigation of the situation. The legislature declared, L.1945, c. 314, § 1:

'Section 1. Unjust, unreasonable and oppressive leases and agreements for the payment of rent for office space and retail stores and other business space in certain cities having been and now being exacted by landlords under stress of prevailing conditions accelerated by the war, and an abundance of eviction proceedings against tenants having been commenced or threatened by landlords, whereby breakdown has taken place in normal processes of bargaining and freedom of contract has become an illusory concept, and whereby there have come into existence conditions threatening to obstruct war production, and the production and distribution of essential civilian commodities, and the rendition of essential services, professional and otherwise, and to divert essential manpower, materials and transportation facilities, and to cause inflation, and all of the foregoing situations and conditions being a threat to the successful prosecution of the war and essential civilian activities, and to the public safety, health, and general welfare of the people of the state of New York, it is hereby declared that a public emergency exists, which is increasing in intensity without slackening and without promise of relief so long as present war conditions continue, and that action by the legislature is imperative and will not admit of delay. It is hereby found, therefore, as a matter of legislative determination, that for the duration of such emergency, the establishment of a maximum rent for office and retail store and other business space at a level of fifteen per centum above rents charged on June first, nineteen hundred forty-four or at a level otherwise determined as hereinafter provided, will curb the evils arising from such emergency and will accomplish the purposes hereof. This act is declared to be a measure designed to protect and promote the public health, safety and general welfare, to aid the successful prosecution of the war, and essential civilian activities, and to conserve manpower, essential materials and transportation facilities, and to prevent inflation, and is made necessary by an existing emergency.'

This was the same emergency which impelled the enactment of the Commercial Rent Law, L.1945, c. 3, § 1; Court Square Building, Inc., v. City of New York, 298 N.Y. 380, 385, 83 N.E.2d 843, 844.

There was good reason for the legislature to have recognized the crying need for public protection, and to have acted as a consequence thereof. Lest the memories of any of us have dimmed over the years, it may be well to be reminded of the fretful struggle for survival, with its concomitant need for supply to our armed forces and civilians, necessitating rationing of all commodities, whether consumer items or places to live and work. For without required control, inflation would have offset the effort expended in defense of our democratic way of life.

The Committee's report, which urged the enactment of the Commercial Rent Law which ensued, based its conclusions on its findings that 'the health, morale, safety and general welfare of the People of the State of New York, as well as the safety of the Nation, and the successful prosecution of the war and essential civilian activity', Legislative Document (1945) No. 2, [1 Misc.2d 563] p. 18, forced this very kind of legislative action. These findings and purposes of the law were echoed by the Governor in his message approving the bill. Similar findings and approval, with change of emphasis only, can be found in the same documents with respect to the Business Rent Law.

The basis of the original bill was the public emergency. Though challenged at the time, no one had the temerity to advocate that the facts and emergency conditions which bottomed the legislative determination were nonexisting. The Court had little difficulty in finding constitutionality with respect to the Commercial Rent Law, Twentieth Century Associates, Inc., v. Waldman, 294 N.Y. 571, 63 N.E.2d 177, 162 A.L.R. 197, and later in 1949 in holding that the companion Business Rent Law required similar judicial pronouncement. Court Square Building, Inc., v. City of New York, supra.

The basic political concept of Americans which prompts abhorrence of any regulation destined to shackle freedom of personal or economic life, constrained the legislature to continue to 'watch dog' developments in the rent field, over which it had so comprehensivel taken control. In 1948 a Temporary State Commission was created to study rental conditions of commerce and business. It had, among other of its reportorial duties, the responsibility to keep abreast of the facts currently in order to advise the legislature as to whether conditions have changed which require change in law.

The Commercial and Business Rent Laws were re-enacted by the legislature, with amendments ostensibly reflecting slightly changing conditions and requirements, from year to year. In its 1953 report to the legislature the Temporary State Commission evinced a belief that the necessity for controls was diminishing. However, the legislature continued the legislation for an additional year, 1953 Legislative Document No. 43; L.1953, cc. 451, 452.

As far as the record before me shows, the last full important meeting of the Temporary Commission was held on December 15, 1953. At that time it proposed to further its then study of conditions in order to be fortified with current facts reflecting public requirements, if any. The study, it stated, would not be complete in time for the 1954 legislative session. It so reported to the legislature, 1954 Legislative Document No. 58, and the legislature, declaring the emergency to be still extant, re-enacted the control laws, to be effective for an additional year, L.1954, cc. 446, 447. The following year, based upon the Commission's report (which referred to no further survey which was contemplated in its immediately preceding report) and upon public hearing, the legislature extended the laws to July 1, 1956, L.1955, cc. 701, 702. It is the former which is here attacked.

The result in this action cannot easily be reached. It involves some basically deep concepts of constitutional law and an equitable balance of the facts--including human experience--within the ambit of that legislative enactment and those provisions of the constitutions. The severity of proof required in the solution of the problems presented impressed sufficiently to warrant the taking of about 2,000 pages of testimony on the trial, the offering of 235 exhibits by the landlord and 30 by the Attorney General, the taking of 170 pages of pre-trial minutes, and the submission by counsel of many hundreds of pages of briefs.

As for the merits, the landlord's fundamental attack on the legality of the statute is based on a contention that there was an absence of...