WORMOOD v. ASSOCIATION, 87 N.H. 136 (1934)


175 A. 233

BEATRICE WORMOOD v. ALTON BAY CAMP MEETING ASSOCIATION.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire Belknap.
Decided November 7, 1934.

The right of a landlord to terminate a tenancy at will by the notice and procedure prescribed by P. L., c. 357 does not depend upon his motives in attempting to exercise it.

BILL IN EQUITY, for an injunction to restrain the defendant from terminating the plaintiff’s 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 campground 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 . . . .

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“(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.

“(6) The notice to quit expires January 20, 1934, 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 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, have 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 campground. 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, and decreed that the defendant and its officers, agents, and servants, and each of them, be strictly enjoined from prosecuting its notice given to the plaintiff to quit its premises in Alton, or in any way evicting or removing the plaintiff or her property therefrom . . . . This order . . . shall continue in force until sixty days after judgment is rendered in the civil suit of the plaintiff against the defendant, unless sooner modified or revoked by order of justice of this Court. Whether or not it should be continued or or made permanent after such judgment may then be determined.”

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To the foregoing rulings and decree the defendant excepted.

Harold E. Wescott (by brief and orally), for the plaintiff.

Conrad E. Snow (by brief and orally), for the defendant.

BRANCH, J.

The rulings of the trial court and the injunction based thereon are perplexing because of the assumptions upon which they appear to rest.

It is assumed that in the absence of a lease or other agreement defining the rights of the parties, one who erects or maintains a building on the land of another with the consent of the owner, thereby acquires some legal right to keep it there after the consent is withdrawn.

It is assumed that a tenancy cannot be terminated by a landlord unless he has an acceptable reason for so doing and that the law forbids such termination “from mere whim or caprice or revenge.”

It is assumed that a court of equity has power to override the statute law of the state and enjoin the ejection of a tenant by his landlord whenever it finds the purposes or motives of the landlord to be reprehensible.

More specifically it is assumed that the bringing of a law suit by a tenant against his landlord is something which the latter ought not to resent, and if he perversely seeks to terminate the tenancy on this account, he may be enjoined from doing so until the suit is determined.

In none of these assumptions do we recognize established rules of law or equity.

This case is governed by principles of an entirely different tenor. By every test of common and statute law of this state, the plaintiff was merely a tenant at will of the defendant. Dame v. Dame, 38 N.H. 429, 434; P. L., c. 213, s. 15; P. L., c. 357, s. 1. Her right to occupy the land in question was terminable at any time by the defendant providing the statutory notice was given. P. L., c. 357, s. 2; Houston v. Laffee, 46 N.H. 505; Batchelder v. Hibbard, 58 N.H. 269. Three months’ notice is “sufficient in all cases.” P. L., c. 357, s. 3. The motives of the defendant in seeking to terminate the tenancy are immaterial. DeWolfe v. Roberts, 229 Mass. 410.

The injunction was improvidently issued and must be dissolved forthwith.

Injunction dissolved: bill dismissed.

All concurred.

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