Johnson v. Conger

Decided November 15, 1861

New York Supreme Court · decided 1861-11-15

This action was brought by Jeremiah W. Johnson against Abraham B. Conger and Mary R. Conger, his wife, to obtain the specific performance of a covenant to execute a renewal of a lease. The plaintiff was the lessee of the premises No. 25 Catharinestreet, in the city of New York, under a lease with covenants of renewal, and this action was brought to compel the defendants to execute a renewal lease and for an injunction.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1861-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently April 1905

3 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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By the Court.*—Ingraham, P. J.

¶1We are of the opinion that the lease compels a renewal, and that one party is bound to give and the other to accept such renewal. The rent, if changed, is to be fixed by arbitrators chosen by the parties, and no notice was necessary from the lessee before the expiration of the lease.

¶2We think a court of equity can compel the parties to perform this covenant of renewal. If the landlord declines to name an arbitrator on his part, the same can be ascertained by the court, or the lease renewed at the old rent.

¶3What was said in Greason a. Keteltas (17 N. Y., 491) was not necessary to the decision of that case, and can hardly be considered as conclusive in this case.

¶4This case also differs from the one cited, in that the obligation here to renew is absolute; in the other it was at the option of the lessee.

¶5The order appealed from should be afiirmed.

¶6 Present, Ingraham, P. J., Clerke and Sutherland, JJ.