Machover v. Abdallah

• Decision Date: 03 April 1964
• Docket Number: No. 14,341,14,341
• Citation: 4 V.I. 518
• Parties: ISAAC MACHOVER and LOLA MACHOVER v. ABDRHMIN ABDALLAH and MENRAH ABDALLAH MOHAMMED ABDALLAH, Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

4 V.I. 518

ISAAC MACHOVER and LOLA MACHOVER v. ABDRHMIN ABDALLAH and MENRAH ABDALLAHMOHAMMED ABDALLAH, Appellant

No. 14,341

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit

Argued at Charlotte Amalie January 28, 1964

Decided April 3, 1964

See, also, 329 F.2d 800

Appeal from order of the District Court directing appellant to vacate a store and deliver possession thereof to respondents. The Court of Appeals, Maris, Circuit Judge, held that since the appellant was entitled to possession of store under a lease of the premises entered into prior to the agreement for the sale of premises, the District Court erred in ordering him to vacate prior to the expiration date of the lease.

Order appealed from reversed.GEORGE H. T. DUDLEY, ESQ. (DUDLEY, HOFFMAN & GRUNERT), Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, for appellant

WILLIAM H. D. COX, ESQ. (COX & BORNN), Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, for Abdrhmin Abdallah and Menrah Abdallah

DAVID E. MAAS, ESQ. (MAAS & IRELAND), St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, for Isaac Machover and Lola Machover

Before MARIS, STALEY and ALDRICH, Circuit Judges

MARIS, Circuit Judge

Mohammed Abdallah has appealed from an order of the District Court of the Virgin Islands directing him to vacate a store on the ground floor of premises No. 2 Dronningens-gade in the Queen's Quarter of the town of Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, in which he is carrying on a business known as the "Holy Land Store", and to deliver possession of the store to the plaintiffs, Isaac Machover and Lola Machover, his wife. The order was entered in a suit between the plaintiffs and Abdrhmin Abdallah and Menrah Abdallah, his wife, as defendants, in which the plaintiffs sought and obtained a judgment for specific performance of an agreement dated December 30, 1959 for the sale of premises No. 2 Dronningensgade by the defendants to the plaintiffs. The judgment of the district court directing specific performance of the agreement of sale was affirmed on appeal by this court. Machover et al. v. Abdallah et al., 1962, 4 V. I. 353, 297 F.2d 938. By deed dated April 18, 1962 the defendants made the conveyance ordered by the judgment of the court.

On December 9, 1959, three weeks before the agreement of sale was signed and before any negotiations for the agreement had begun, defendant Abdrhmin Abdallah gave his nephew Mohammed Abdallah, the appellant, a written lease of the ground floor of the premises No. 2 Dronningensgade, which was occupied by the Holy Land Store, for a term of five years from January 1, 1960. It appears that the uncle desired to retire from business, sell his propertyand return to Palestine to live, which, it was stated at bar, he subsequently did.

In the course of the subsequent negotiations for the agreement of sale Abdrhmin Abdallah, through his agent Osmond Kean, urged that his nephew be permitted to stay on the premises as a tenant for five years but Isaac Mach-over insisted that he should have a lease for not more than two years. The agreement as signed so provided.

The appellant learned of the sale shortly after the agreement was signed. On the same day Isaac Machover came by to look at the property and the appellant, who was then in the store, asked him whether he had bought the property and, upon being told by Machover that he had, informed him, as the district court found, that he, Mohammed Abdallah, had papers on the property. Machover, however, walked away without inquiring as to Mohammed Abdal-lah's interest or the nature of the "papers", although as he later admitted in his testimony he knew that Mohammed Abdallah was a tenant. His explanation was that he had no reason to make such inquiry because of the agreement with the defendants that the nephew was to have a two years lease only.

A few days after the appellant learned of the sale his uncle showed him the agreement and asserted that he had been tricked into signing it, having intended to sell another property. The appellant took his uncle to a lawyer who prepared a letter which the uncle sent to Machover renouncing the agreement. About the same time the appellant consulted the same lawyer about his rights under the lease of December 9, 1959 in view of the sale. He was advised to have the lease recorded and this was done on January 12, 1960. Meanwhile on January 11, 1960 Isaac and Lola Machover brought the present suit for specific performance against Abdrhmin and Menrah Abdallah and on the same day filed in the office of the recorder of deeds a notice of lis pendens.As we have said, the district court ultimately entered judgment for the plaintiffs which was affirmed by this court on appeal, and on April 18, 1962 the defendants executed a deed of conveyance to the plaintiffs as directed by the judgment.

Following the conveyance thus made the appellant continued in possession of the portion of the premises occupied by the Holy Land Store, claiming the right to do so until December 31,1964 under the lease of December 9,1959. The plaintiffs thereupon procured from the district court an order upon the appellant, who had not theretofore been a party to the suit, to show cause why his purported lease should not be declared void. They also asked the court to order the appellant to vacate the property and turn possession thereof over to the plaintiffs. Answers were filed by the appellant and the defendants and, after hearing, the district court ordered the appellant to vacate the premises and deliver possession thereof to the plaintiffs. The present appeal followed.

The district court's action was based upon its conclusions (1) that the plaintiffs had exercised good faith by making such an investigation as reasonably prudent people would do under the circumstances and were not estopped from exercising their rights under the contract of December 30, 1959 to have possession of the store on January 2, 1962, and (2) that the appellant, having done nothing before or after December 30, 1959 to call attention to the lease of December 9, 1959, did not exercise good faith and was, therefore, estopped from claiming any rights under the lease of December 9, 1959 against the plaintiffs. We think that the court erred in both conclusions.

[1-3] It is a rule of the common law that possession of real property is notice to the world of every right that the possessor has therein; it is a fact putting all persons on in-quiry as to the nature of the occupant's claim.¹ The rule is applicable to the rights of a tenant in possession.² Accordingly it has...