Pyle v. Orzell
| Decision Date | 26 November 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 57,57 |
| Citation | 86 N.W.2d 163,350 Mich. 298 |
| Parties | Joan C. PYLE, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Charles V. ORZELL, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Gabriel Glantz, Detroit, for defendant and appellant.
Wurzer, Higgins & Starrs, Detroit (John T. Higgins, John R. Starrs and Robert A. Macdonell, Detroit, of counsel), for plaintiff and appellee.
Before the Entire Bench.
Once again we grapple with the knotty problems which afflit people as they continue in the face of all warning evidence to the contrary to hopefully seek to alter important written legal arrangements by word of mouth. This time our problem arises under a written lease of a dance hall known as the Madison Ballroom in the City of Detroit. The lease was for a term from October 9, 1953 to October 3, 1954 at a rental of $500 for each weekend, defined in the lease as Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. The lease gave the tenant the right any time after the start of 1954 to terminate upon giving 5 weeks written notice.
Terpsichore languished in that portion of Detroit and business was bad; the defendant tenant managed to pay his weekly $500 faithfully from the inception of the lease through Christmas, but after that he paid but $200 for each Saturday night for the period January 9 through February 6, 1954; and thereafter $150 for each Saturday night from February 13 through March 13. On the latter date the defendant orally notified the landlord's husband and agent that he no longer intended to use the premises, and in fact did not do so after that.
On May 25, 1954 the landlord commenced this lawsuit, claiming $500 back unpaid rent for the 1954 New Year's weekend, $114 for miscellaneous expenses, and rentals at the full rate of $500 weekly under the lease for the period commencing with March 19, 1954 and ending July 7, 1954--the latter date being the termination date under the written notice hereafter mentioned. The defendant's answer alleged an oral cancellation and mutual surrender of the lease during March 1954, which by reply the plaintiff denied. At the trial before the court without a jury the defendant admitted the item of $500 back rent and the miscellaneous item of $114, totalling $614, but sought to show that the lease was orally cancelled or surrendered on either January 3, 1954 or during the following March, and that any tenancy thereafter was merely from week to week. On June 2, 1954 the defendant's attorney wrote the plaintiff in part as follows: 'This letter confirms Mr. Orzell's earlier notification to Mr. Pyle that he no longer wishes to lease the Madison Ballroom.'
At the trial below the defendant sought to establish by cross-examination of the plaintiff and her husband and by his own testimony that he gave verbal notice to Mr. Pyle on January 3, 1954 that he was through and would have no further use for the dance hall, and that what passed between them then amounted to a cancellation or surrender of the old lease and the substitution of a new oral lease from week to week. Mr. Pyle countered with testimony that he did not agree to cancel the old lease and that he was merely giving the defendant a break because of poor business and that to temporarily assist him he himself suggested that defendant use the hall only on Saturday nights for awhile and that his wife would try to use it on the other days. There was testimony that this oral arrangement was to last but a month at $200 for each Saturday night. There appears no dispute that this oral arrangement for the rental of the dance hall did prevail from January 9 through February 6, a total of 5 weeks, and thereafter a new oral arrangement prevailed at $150 a Saturday night until the time in March when the defendant finally threw in the sponge--or perhaps we should more accurately say the floor wax.
Defendant further testified and contended below that during March 1954 he and Mr. Pyle agreed to cancel the lease and settle all accounts for $700, but Pyle denied this and it does not appear that the $700 or any amount in settlement that was discussed was in fact ever paid. It also appeared below that commencing with the weekend of March 12, 1954 the plaintiff landlord herself used the premises to give, for a price, weekend afternoon roller skating parties for children (there was also at least one Friday evening), keeping the premises free, however, on Saturday evenings, and that this user continued until early in June.
The court below held that no proper cancellation or surrender of the lease had been shown by the defendant and he found for the plaintiff for 15 weeks ...
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Briarwood v. Faber's Fabrics, Inc.
...facts. Surrender of a lease goes beyond merely vacating or abandoning the premises and requires mutual agreement. Pyle v. Orzell, 350 Mich. 298, 303, 86 N.W.2d 163 (1957). Mutual agreement clearly did not exist in this case. Briarwood showed no intention of releasing Faber from its obligati......
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M & V Barocas v. THC, Inc., Docket No. 174448
...of the premises by the tenant; it requires a mutual agreement between landlord and tenant to terminate the lease. Pyle v. Orzell, 350 Mich. 298, 86 N.W.2d 163 (1957); Briarwood v. Faber's Fabrics, Inc., 163 Mich.App. 784, 415 N.W.2d 310 (1987). No surrender occurs where the landlord refused......
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Jefferson Development Co. v. Heritage Cleaners
...parties, and a tenant's decision to vacate or abandon the premises does not in and of itself exonerate the tenant. Pyle v. Orzell, 350 Mich. 298, 303, 86 N.W.2d 163 (1957), and cases cited therein. Alternatively, a landlord may continue to hold the tenant liable on the lease, in which case ......
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Winshall v. Ampco Auto Parks, Inc., Civ. A. No. 4-72997.
...and tenant to a surrender by operation of law, and this regardless of whether the lease contains a survival clause. Pyle v. Orzell, 350 Mich. 298, 303, 86 N.W.2d 163 (1958). The burden is on the party relying on a surrender to show mutual agreement to the surrender. Pyle, supra, at 302, 86 ......