Wormood v. Alton Bay Camp Meeting Ass'n

• Decision Date: 06 November 1934
• Citation: 175 A. 233
• Parties: WORMOOD v. ALTON BAY CAMP MEETING ASS'N.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

175 A. 233

WORMOOD

v. ALTON BAY CAMP MEETING ASS'N.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Belknap.

Nov. 6, 1934.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Belknap County; Page, Judge.

Bill by Beatrice Wormood against the Alton Bay Camp Meeting Association. To review a decree granting an injunction, defendant brings exceptions.

Injunction dissolved and bill dismissed.

Bill in equity for an injunction to restrain the defendant from terminating the plaintiffs tenancy of a lot of land owned by the defendant pending the determination of a suit at law brought by the plaintiff against the defendant. Trial by the court. Injunction ordered. The court (Page, J.) made the following findings, rulings, and decree:

"(1) The defendant is a religious association which maintains a camp-ground at Alton Bay. Incident thereto it rents ground to several hundred people on which the latter have cottages which they own and maintain, paying to the defendant annual ground rent.

"(2) The plaintiff is the owner of such a cottage located on the defendant's land. She purchased the cottage in 1927 from a former owner.

"(3) The rules of the defendant provide that no cottage shall occupy a lot on the ground without written consent of the defendant, and none shall be sold to a new owner without similar consent. Such consent was never in this instance given by the defendant, but the defendant waived the rule and annually billed the ground rent to the plaintiff, and collected it. * * * The plaintiff has no lease of the land on which her cottage stands. The defendant has never given the plaintiff any reason for believing that she would be permitted to occupy the premises after January 20, 1934, other than the custom of the past.

"(4) The civil suit is based upon the claim by the plaintiff that the building by the defendant of an ice house on the lot adjoining the one she occupies had caused water to run onto the latter, with consequent injury to her cottage. * * * It is found that the suit was begun and is being prosecuted by the plaintiff in entire good faith, upon the honest and not unreasonable belief that she has a good claim.

"(5) After the civil suit was begun, the defendant gave the plaintiff a notice to quit the premises. The notice was dated October 20, 1933, and was for three months. The sole reason for the giving of this notice was that the plaintiff had begun suit. There is no evidence * * * of the failure of the plaintiff to observe any rule of the defendant except those mentioned in finding No. 3.

"(0) The notice to quit expires January 20, 1931, before the civil action can be tried.

"(7) The situation of the passways and other buildings is such that the plaintiff's cottage could not be removed without tearing it to pieces and leaving it of no net value. The building cannot be sold to a tenant acceptable to the defendant without loss to the plaintiff of all, or substantially all, of its value. * * *

"Rulings.

"(1) While the technical relationship of tenant and landlord exists between the parties, the relationship is qualified by the fact that the tenant, in common with other tenants, has been induced to build or maintain an improvement upon the defendant's land of mutual advantage to the parties. The defendant has the undoubted right (a duty to its tenants in general) to maintain the moral and social integrity of the camp-ground. Within these and perhaps other reasonable limitations, however, it is bound to respect the property rights of its tenants. It may not terminate the tenancy, with special damage to the tenant, from mere whim or caprice or revenge. It may not, when charged with invading a tenant's property rights, forthwith terminate the tenancy and cause the total destruction of the tenant's property by an untimely notice to quit, at least in the absence of any fault or default of the tenant other than the prosecution of a suit in good faith founded upon the supposed invasion. * * *

"Decree.

"It is ordered, adjudged,...