Snyder v. Kulesh
| Decision Date | 13 December 1913 |
| Citation | 144 N.W. 306,163 Iowa 748 |
| Parties | SAM SNYDER, Appellee, v. H. N. KULESH and ROSA KULESH, Appellants |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Pottawattamie District Court.--HON. THOMAS ARTHUR Judge.
SUIT in equity to enjoin the defendants from erecting or painting a sign on one of the walls of a building which defendants had leased from plaintiff. The trial court granted the relief prayed, and defendants appeal.--Reversed and Remanded.
Reversed and Remanded.
A. W Askwith, for appellants.
Saunders & Stuart, for appellee.
Plaintiff is the owner of a two-story, brick and stone building on one of the main streets of Council Bluffs, and in the year 1911 leased the defendants the first floor and basement of the building for the term of two years, with an option on their part to extend the term three years after the expiration of the one created by the lease. The premises were rented for a pawnshop, a jewelry, and firearms business. The building fronts on what is known as Broadway street, in Council Bluffs, and the entrance to the front room is near the middle of the building. On either side of the entrance there are plate glass windows, and on the outer side of each of the windows are stone columns, each from fourteen to eighteen inches wide, made to support the upper story and to hold the front in place. On the west side of the west column is a stairway leading to the upper story, and this stairway is a common one used not only for entrance to the second story of plaintiff's building, but also to the second story of an adjoining one; and one-half of this stairway is on plaintiff's property, the column on that side of the building being wholly on plaintiff's lot. Just before the commencement of this action, defendants were about to paint a sign, advertising their business, upon the west column, above described, and had employed a sign painter to paint one, some sixteen or eighteen inches square, when plaintiff commenced this action to enjoin them from so doing. He claimed that defendants had no right to use the outside of his building, and secured a temporary injunction restraining them from painting any sign on the front of the building. The case was not presented to the lower court on the theory that the painting of the sign upon the column would greatly disfigure and damage the same, although in a reply plaintiff alleged that the use of black paint upon the stone column would mar the same, and further pleaded that defendants were proposing to erect or paint their sign for the purpose of injuring him, he being a competitor of theirs in business; and that he wished to use the column as a place for painting a sign of his own.
We are not advised as to the reason why the trial court entered the decree it did; for it certainly could not have been upon the theory that the painting of the sign, which defendants were proposing to...
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