Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

98 Mass. 503

Casey v. King

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 15, 1868

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1868-01-15

Two actions on the Gen. Sts. c. 137, to recover possession of a shop on Front Street in Gloucester, tried, on appeal, in the superior court, before Ames, C. J. At the trial of the first action it appeared that the plaintiff and the defendants were in joint occupation of the premises, each claiming the right of exclusive possession as tenant at will of the owner, and denying the other’s right, when the plaintiff procured from the owner a written lease of the premises for the…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently February 1927

3 state decisions

101868187018801890190019101920decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Foster, J.

¶11. The defendants were tenants at will to the owner of the estate. By the written lease to the plaintiff this tenancy at will was terminated, and they thereupon became tenants by sufferance to the lessee for years. It is common learning that a lease for a period of less than a year is to be ranked among leases for years. Co. Lit. 52 b. 4 Kent Com. (6th ed.) 85. After notice of the alienation and reasonable opportunity to remove from the premises, the defendants became liable to this statute process. Pratt v. Farrar, 10 Allen, 519.

¶22. The first of the two actions cannot be abated because the 'easehold estate of the plaintiff under the first lease has terminated during its pendency. He is still entitled to costs and to a judgment which will enable him to avail himself of any recognizance which may have been taken to secure intervening rent upon an appeal from the magistrate before whom this process was commenced. Coburn v. Palmer, 10 Cush. 274. Blish v. Harlow, 15 Gray, 316. King v. Lawson, ante, 309. The circumstance that both parties were in joint occupation of the premises, each claiming to be a tenant at will under the owner of the estate, did not impair the operation of the written lease. Its effect was nevertheless to make the plaintiff a lessee for years and the defendants tenants by sufferance to him. No other relation of landlord and tenant is necessary to maintain this process than such a tenancy by sufferance as these facts created.

¶3*5053. The second action was instituted after the termination of the first written lease and the commencement of the term fox years created by the second. It was resorted to because no judgment for possession could be obtained in the first action after the termination of the first lease. The fact that the plaintiff gave up the premises and left the defendants in possession constitutes no defence to this action. The plaintiff is entitled in it to judgment for possession.

¶4Exceptions overruled in both cases; in the second with double costs.

/98/mass/503 · .json · Public domain