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2 Foster 203

Vanarsdalen v. Whitaker

Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County · decided 1874-06-10

<p>Equity will not restrain a proceeding by landlord against tenant lor possession upon grounds, such as change of title, which may he asserted by the tenant in the proceeding itself.</p>

Decided 1874-06-10

¶1Opinion delivered June 10, 1874, by

Peirce. J.

¶2This bill is filed to restrain the defendant, Robert Whitaker, from proceeding at law as landlord under the act of 1830, to recover possession of the premises No. 230 South Sixth street.

¶3The plaintiffs allege that they are not tenants of Whitaker/but that they are vendees in possession of the premises under a contract of purchase *204of them from him. If so, they can defend at law in the ' proceeding to recover possession, by showing that the relation of landlord and tenant does not subsist between the parties; or that if it did, it has been determined by the contract of purchase, and possession under it, which they now set up as the ground of this bill.

¶4The remedy sought by the plaintiff in the landlord and tenant proceeding is purely legal, and the defence is purely legal. There is no .reason, therefore, why a court of equity should interfere.

¶5It is unnecessary, and therefore improper, to express any opinion in this proceeding as to the legal effect of the papers on which the parties respectively rely, or on any of the questions which may arise in the proceeding before the alderman. The special injunction is dissolved.

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