West v. Hart
| Decision Date | 24 April 1832 |
| Citation | 30 Ky. 258 |
| Parties | West v. Hart, & c. |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
Lease Covenant in. Covenant to Keep in Repair.
ERROR TO THE MASON CIRCUIT; ROPER, JUDGE.
Triplett and Hord for plaintiff.
Morehead and Brown for defendants.
This case depends upon the construction to be given to the following covenant in a lease: " To keep the farm and buildings in good repair and leave them in the same good order, at the end of said term of three years."
Covenant " to keep the farm and buildings in good repair and leave them in the same order at the end of said term of three years," does not bind the tenant, either to put or leave the premises in better repair than they were at date of the covenant.
It is contended in behalf of plaintiff in error, that this covenant bound the defendants to put the farm and buildings in good repair, and to leave them in actual good repair at the end of the lease, without reference to their condition at the date of the lease. We have been referred to the case of Brashear v. Chandler, VI. Mon., 150, as ruling this to be the true construction. That case is not like this. There, the covenant was, to deliver the farm at the end of the lease, in good tenantable repair in every respect, and it was properly construed into a stipulation for putting the farm into repair, whatever its situation might have been when rented. It is said in that case that a covenant simply to repair, may be construed to embrace only the making good what may be damaged, ad interim, but that the stipulation to deliver in good repair in every respect, left no room for limiting it into a covenant merely to repair, according to the original condition of the farm. The word keep, seems to us, to have direct reference to the condition of the premises at the time of the lease, and that the then state of repair must be taken to be, what the parties meant by good repairs. There is so broad and palpable a distinction, between a promise to put into repair and one to keep in repair, that it is almost impossible to believe the parties meant the former when they used the latter expression. A covenant to keep in repair is certainly no broader than a covenant to repair, and if the latter obliges only to make good the damage ad interim, no greater stress can be laid on the promise to keep in repair.
The last clause " to leave in the same good order," gives no aid to the construction, one...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Malden Knitting Mills, Inc. v. United States Rubber Co.
...As to the effect of this covenant of the plaintiff, see Belcher v. McIntosh, 8 C. & P. 721 (173 Eng.Rep.Reprint 689); West v. Hart, 30 Ky. 258,7 J.J.Marsh. 258;Thomas v. Kingsland, 108 N.Y. 616, 14 N.E. 807. The plaintiff suggests that the typewritten provisions of clause 29 should prevail ......