Meyrovitz v. Watford, 4 Div. 966

• Decision Date: 02 December 1937
• Docket Number: 4 Div. 966
• Citation: 177 So. 887,235 Ala. 163
• Parties: MEYROVITZ et al. v. WATFORD et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

177 So. 887

235 Ala. 163

MEYROVITZ et al. v. WATFORD et al.

4 Div. 966

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 2, 1937

Rehearing Denied Jan. 13, 1938

Appeal from Circuit Court, Houston County; D.C. Halstead, Judge.

Bill for accounting and discovery by L.A. Meyrovitz and others against G.D. Watford and others. From a decree sustaining a demurrer to the bill, complainants appeal.

Affirmed.

Farmer Merrill & Farmer and W.L. Lee, all of Dothan, for appellants.

John W Rish, of Dothan, for appellees.

BOULDIN Justice.

The owner of a two-story store building leased same for a term of years on a monthly rental basis.

Pending this lease, a renewal lease was made to begin at the expiration of the pending lease and run for a number of years on a like rental basis.

On the expiration of the pending lease, the lessee declined to enter upon the new term, removed from the building, and disclaimed any obligation under the new lease.

The lessor sued at law for breach of the new rental contract seeking to recover as damages the difference between the stipulated rental and the alleged market value for rental purpose for the term of the new lease.

The lessees, defendants in the suit at law, interposed numerous pleas setting up a breach of the lessor's covenant in the former lease to repair and keep in good condition the roof of said building and claiming by way of set-off alleged damages for injuries to the stock of merchandise, fixtures, repairs, and improvements made by the lessee on the interior of the building, and loss of rents on offices in the second story, all alleged to have accrued from the bad and leaky condition of the roof while occupied under the former lease.

The lessees also brought a suit at law against the lessor to recover damages upon an injunction bond given by the lessors in an injunction suit to enjoin the lessees from abandoning the building, etc., which injunction had been dissolved.

The lessor, thereupon, filed a bill in equity, setting up the foregoing, praying that the court of equity take jurisdiction of the whole controversy for a discovery and accounting, and decree full and final relief in the premises.

Demurrers going to the equity of the bill were sustained. This appeal is to review that decree.

The bill sets out as exhibits the several pleas which the bill avers call for an accounting. The substantial averments on which equitable relief is sought appear in the following excerpts from the bill:

"Complainants further aver that in said various pleas the defendants are contending and claiming and that the said respondents are now insisting and contending, that on, to-wit, the 26th day of May, 1931, and up to, to-wit, February 1, 1933, that the said roof on said building was in bad condition and did leak so that water poured through said roof all during said twenty months, or longer, and on various and sundry occasions; that under the terms of said lease-contract complainants were to keep said roof in good condition, and that the respondents were to do all other repairs; that the said respondents relying on representations or statements that said roof had been put in good condition, did on various and sundry occasions, expend large sums of money in making certain repairs, and that water had leaked through said roof during said time, to-wit, twenty months, on various and sundry occasions and damaged their said stock, and did damage the said repairs, and their said furniture and fixtures, in various and sundry amounts, to various and sundry articles of merchandise, to the fixtures and to the repairs and improvements that they had expended; wherefore complainants aver that the said respondents are claiming an accounting for said various damages as hereinabove set forth against these complainants, and

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