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88 Mass. 74

Rooney v. Gillespie

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 15, 1863

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1863-01-15

Two writs under Gen. Sts. c. 137, to recover possession of a tenement, Trials by jury were waived in the superior court, and the cases were heard before Russell, J. It appeared that on the 25th of December 1860 the plaintiff received a deed of the premises from Judson Murdock.

Decided 1863-01-15

Metcalf, J.

¶1In the first of these cases, the agreed facts show that the defendant was tenant at will of the premises in question, under an oral demise from Murdock, who conveyed them to the plaintiff, and thus determined the tenancy and rendered the defendant liable to this process, after notice of such conveyance. The bond given by Murdock, in which he engaged to give a deed of the premises to the defendant, and “ stop charging him rent,” did not change the nature or incidents of the defendant’s tenancy under the oral demise. Benedict v. Morse, 10 Met. 223. Howard v. Merriam, 5 Cush. 563. Furlong v. Leary, 8 Cush. 409.

¶2In the case of White v. Livingston, 10 Cush. 259, cited for the defendant, White was not a tenant at will. He had a written lease for so long a time as he should perform certain conditions. As he bad performed those conditions, it was held that his lessor could not terminate the tenancy by conveying the premises to a third person.

¶3The three cases which the defendant’s counsel cited from 8 Cush, were unlike this. Each of them was decided upon the ground that the defendant never was a lessee, and therefore was not liable to this statute process.

¶4The second case must follow the first. By the Gen. Sts. c. 137, § 2, when the lessee of land or tenements, “ or a person holding under such lessee,” holds possession without right after the determination of the lease, the person entitled to the premises may be restored to the possession by the process which this plaintiff has adopted. Exceptions overruled.

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