Mcmahon v. Weiner, 822.

• Decision Date: 30 June 1949
• Docket Number: No. 822.,822.
• Citation: 67 A.2d 682
• Parties: McMAHON v. WEINER et al.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

67 A.2d 682

McMAHON

v.WEINER et al.

No. 822.

Municipal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Argued June 20, 1949.

Decided June 30, 1949.

Appeal from the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Division.

Action by Adele Weiner and Meyer Weiner, landlords, against Francis X. McMahon, tenant, to recover possession of apartment, wherein the defendant filed a counterclaim for rent overcharges. From adverse judgment, the tenant appeals.

Affirmed.

See also 67 A.2d 525.

James T. Barbour, Jr., Washington, D. C. (Joseph M. Dawson, Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellant.

S. Gilbert Silverman, Washington, D. C. (Morris Neidorf, Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellees.

Before CAYTON, Chief Judge, and HOOD and CLAGETT, Associate Judges.

CAYTON, Chief Judge.

A tenant appeals from a judgment ordering him to yield possession of an apartment. The judgment had a twofold basis: (a) that the landlords had established that they required the apartment in good faith for their own use, ¹ and (b) that tenant was in default in payment of rent.

Attacking the first ground, the tenant-appellant charges that the evidence does not support landlords' claim that they required the apartment in good faith for their own use. The evidence in that connection was that the landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Weiner, were living in a six room house together with two daughters and a son-in-law; that their single daughter wanted to get married; that she and her husband-to-be could not afford an apartment or home of their own; that Mr. and Mrs. Weiner proposed to turn the house over to their two daughters, and they, the plaintiffs, would live in the apartment in suit, then occupied by defendant.

This evidence was uncontradicted by defendant. But defendant did offer testimony to show that Mrs. Weiner, one of plaintiffs, had told him at the time he rented the apartment ‘that he could stay there indefinitely’; that he was not informed that landlords had pending before the Rent Administrator a petition for adjustment of rent; that on one occasion Mrs. Weiner asked him for a key to the apartment and when he refused she told him to move. He also testified that he had inquired at the Office of the Rent Administrator and learned that the maximum rent ceiling was $50 per month instead of the $95 rental he had paid the landlords; that he then called Mrs. Weiner to talk with her about adjusting the rent; that she reproached him for ‘going behind her back’ and told him she wanted him to move; that a few days later he was served with a notice to quit.

We must hold that these circumstances did not require the trial judge to rule as a matter of law that plaintiffs' claim for possession was made in bad faith. We need hardly repeat that the issue of good faith is usually one of fact. ² And as we have previously held, ill will on the part of a landlord toward a tenant, while proper to be considered as bearing on the landlord's good faith, does not necessarily establish bad faith as a matter of law. ³ Thus on the showing before the trial judge he was justified in ruling that plaintiffs were acting in good faith in making their demand for possession.

Appellant says the trial judge was wrong in holding that tenant was in default in payment of rent. The judgment, in addition to awarding possession to the landlords on the ground of personal use, also held that the tenant was in default of rent to the extent of $100 for two months, and awarded plaintiffs that amount. In the same judgment the court awarded the tenant on his...