Porter v. Tureen, 4369.
| Decision Date | 01 November 1946 |
| Docket Number | No. 4369.,4369. |
| Parties | PORTER, Price Administrator, v. TUREEN et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
George L. Robertson, Dist. Enforcement Atty., James D. Dockery, Dist. Litigation Atty., and Tom R. R. Ely, Enforcement Atty., all of St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff.
Martin A. Rosenberg, of St. Louis, Mo., for defendants.
Plaintiff seeks treble damages against the defendants for alleged rent overcharge, sec. 205(e) of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 901 et seq., and Section 1(4) of the Rent Regulation for Housing, 8 F.R. 7322. The sole question presented is whether or not the operation of the defendant Tureen, as shown by the record (Attachment "A"), falls within the regulation or is exempt under Section 1(4), Rent Regulation for Housing.
During the period covered by the complaint defendant Tureen rented property located at 4250 and 4260 Lindell Boulevard to a tenant who operated the rented property as a rooming house. 4250 Lindell has twenty rooms, consisting of first, second and third floors, and basement, and 4260 Lindell has seven rooms on the third floor. The tenant owned the furniture and operated the twenty-seven rooms as a rooming house, paying a stipulated rental for the premises described. The rental included heat. 4260 Lindell was on a different light meter from 4250 Lindell. There are two apartment houses between 4250 and 4260 Lindell. All the buildings are of the same type of construction and are the same in outward appearance. The premises have been sold a number of times and each time they were sold as a unit. The evidence indicates, although it is not positive, that the twenty-seven rooms, as described, were operated as a rooming house prior to the effective date of the rental regulations. There is no evidence that the grouping of the premises to make the twenty-seven rooms was for the purpose of avoiding rent regulations. The proof indicates that a rooming house was originally started on the first floor of 4250 Lindell and gradually expanded to take in the second and third floors and the basement, and when additional space was desired for the rooming house the first vacancy was the third floor of 4260, and in that manner that unit was added to the rooming house. It is the plaintiff's position that because the rooming house business is carried on in two "structures" and neither "structure" has over twenty-five rooms, that the Rent Regulation applies, while defendant contends that the entire twenty-seven rooms although in two "structures" are on the same premises and therefore exempt.
The provision of the Rent Regulation for Housing upon which the plaintiff relies, Section 1(4), is as follows:
"This regulation does not apply to the following:
* * * * * *
It is apparent that the term "structure" will not include the operation of the defendant and if the Regulation contained alone that term the plaintiff's position would be sound, but the Regulation, in addition to the word "structure" uses the language "or premises" and it is this term which must be given construction in the present case. Eliminating the term "structures" from the language of the Regulation it would read as follows:
"This regulation does not apply to the following:
* * * * * *
"(4) Entire * * * premises wherein more than 25 rooms are rented or offered for rent by any lessee, sublessee or other tenant of such entire * * * premises:"
The term "premises" has a broad and varied meaning and its interpretation in a given case is to a great extent governed by the context. In Comeaux v. State, 118 Tex.Cr.R. 223, 42 S.W.2d 255, it was held that an affidavit describing property as "place and premises" located at a certain street number authorized search of the garage located on the same lot as house and used as...
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San Mateo County v. Consolidated Farms, Inc.
...fenced or separately leased property. An office building leased to various tenants could be considered a single premise. In Porter v. Tureen, D.C.1946, 68 F.Supp. 214, 'premises' within the meaning of rent regulations was held to include two buildings rented by the defendant. In the cases d......