Motonaga v. Ishimaru

• Decision Date: 02 July 1948
• Docket Number: No. 2668.,2668.
• Citation: 38 Haw. 158
• Parties: TAKIZO MOTONAGA v. TOKUMATSU ISHIMARU.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

38 Haw. 158

TAKIZO MOTONAGA

v.TOKUMATSU ISHIMARU.

No. 2668.

Supreme Court of the Territory of Hawai‘i.

Submitted June 7, 1948.

Decided July 2, 1948.

ERROR TO CIRCUIT COURT FIRST CIRCUIT, HON. W. C. MOORE, JUDGE.

Syllabus by the Court

A promissory estoppel may arise as an application of the principle of equitable estoppel to certain situations where a promise has been made, even though without consideration, if it was intended that the promise be relied upon and was in fact relied upon, and a refusal to enforce it would be virtually to sanction the perpetration of fraud or result in other injustice.

The doctrine of promissory estoppel operates between the immediate parties and their privies.

Promissory estoppel constitutes an equitable defense in ejectment.

R. B. Jamieson for plaintiff in error.

R. T. Yamaguchi for defendant in error.

KEMP, C. J., PETERS AND LE BARON, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY LE BARON, J.

The plaintiff brought ejectment against the defendant for restitution of a one-half portion of a leasehold. After trial, jury waived, the trial judge rendered decision in favor of the plaintiff and entered judgment accordingly for possession and damages.

Aside from painstakingly attacking various reasons for restitution advanced by the trial judge in his decision and findings made therein, the assignment of errors presents but one paramount question, the answer to which is decisive of the appeal. That question challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the judgment and is whether or not the trial judge erred in adjudging that the plaintiff is entitled to restitution.

At this juncture it is pertinent to note that, upon the record, this court deems an equitable defense to have been properly invoked, irrespective of the fact that it was not formally pleaded, the defendant having filed, by way of defense, an amended answer alleging sufficient facts and circumstances upon which the defense may be fairly rested. That this was the theory below is indicated by the brief of the plaintiff, if not by that of the defendant, which concedes that the trial judge assumed “the existence of equitable estoppel” as between the lessee and the defendant's predecessor in actual possession. Consonant thereto, the plaintiff argues before this court that the “Defendant has failed to prove all the elements necessary to give rise to an equitable estoppel.” Further, the efficacy of the appeal depends squarely upon whether an equitable defense has been sustained, it being the only bar under the evidence to the plaintiff's assertion of right to possession. The duty of this court, therefore, is to consider the question presented in the light of that defense, the overruling of which being the underlying error to which the question, by necessary implication, is directed. So considered, the question is one of law to be decided upon the undisputed evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom.

The lessee obtained the leasehold from the lessor for a term of twenty-five years. Knowing that a certain religious organization desired a location upon which to erect a temple and priest house, the lessee immediately invited it, for that purpose, to enter upon a one-half portion of the leasehold. As an inducement, the lessee called attention to the length of her lease and, in effect, promised that should her invitation be accepted she would not assert her right to possession under the lease for its full term provided that the portion's lease rental and taxes were paid as the sole limitation or condition. The association accepted the lessee's invitation. It relied upon her promise by (1) entering into possession, (2) forming itself into an eleemosynary corporation, hereinafter designated as the “shrine,” so as to effectuate the purpose implicit in its acceptance of the invitation, (3) erecting the temple and priest house, which are permanent and valuable buildings, and (4) expending substantial sums of money in the erection thereof, all of which the lessee not only permitted but encouraged and assisted in as an active member of the association and of the shrine.

The shrine, after being in possession for some eighteen years, voluntarily dissolved itself as a corporation, whereupon the shrine's president was appointed trustee. He now presumably holds the office of trustee and stands undischarged therefrom, there being nothing to the contrary in the record. The dissolution was precipitated by the written suggestion of the foreign funds control. It followed the cessation of the shrine's religious activities upon the outbreak of war, when some of its officers and members and its priest were interned as enemy aliens. Shortly after the priest's internment and approximately two years before dissolution, the shrine expressly permitted the defendant to enter into possession without limitation of time. It required him to care for the premises and pay the lease rental and taxes but reserved no rental for itself. Pursuant thereto, the defendant entered into possession and has stayed therein ever since. His possession, having been permissive before dissolution, is impliedly so thereafter, the trustee, as the shrine's successor and privy in law, doing nothing to indicate the contrary. As a matter of law and fact, the permissive possession of the defendant, therefore, constitutes a tenancy at will which has endured up to the present time, none of the parties thereto having terminated it. The lease rental and taxes were paid to the lessee from the time of the association's entry until one year after the trustee had filed a report with the territorial treasurer, when the lessee refused to accept further payments from the defendant. The plaintiff, on becoming assignee of the lease, persisted in such refusal, the defendant at all times standing ready and willing to pay. One month before she refused to accept such payments, the lessee, for a valuable consideration, executed a written assignment of her lease to the plaintiff upon the written consent of the lessor. The plaintiff thereupon sought the defendant's ouster and instituted the instant ejectment against him.

This court is of the opinion that the undisputed evidence establishes not one but two distinct grounds of equitable defense to the plaintiff's otherwise good title. Both grounds are doctrines which are recognized by courts of law within the more comprehensive doctrine of equitable estoppel. One is the doctrine of part...