Case ID: misc_65/html/0029-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Bigalke & Eckert Company, Respondent, v. The Wm. Knabe & Co. Mfg. Co., Appellant.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
    November, 1909.) -
    Landlord and tenant—.Rights, duties and liabilities in regard to premises — Repairs, insurance and improvements — Improvements by tenant — Covenant to surrender improvements.
    Where a tenant agreed that no nails, hooks or screws should be driven in any part of the walls or woodwork of the leased premises and that all alterations or improvements or additions put in by the tenant, except “ movable office furniture,” should become the property of the landlord, glass and mahogany partitions, some of which extended to the ceiling and were, apparently, erected in a very substantial manner, are not “movable office furniture ” within the meaning of the lease; and a judgment in the tenant’s favor for the value of said partitions, which the landlord prevented it from taking when it removed from the premises, will be reversed.
    
      Appeal by the defendant from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff rendered in the Municipal Court of the city of Hew York, ninth district, borough of Manhattan.
    Sproull, Harmer & Sproull, for appellant.
    Sullivan & Cromwell (Emery H. Sykes, of counsel), for respondent.
   Per Curiam.

The plaintiff obtained judgment. Defendant appeals. Plaintiff was a tenant of defendant and put up in the leased premises fifty-five feet of glass and mahogany partitions. When plaintiff moved out, it sought to take these partitions with it, but was prevented by defendant. The value of said partitions is claimed by plaintiff to be $100. Defendant claims that plaintiff agreed that no nails, hooks or screws should be driven in any part of the walls or woodwork of said leased premises, or any alterations made, without defendant’s permission in writing, and also that it was ’particularly agreed that all alterations or improvements or additions put in by plaintiff, except movable office furniture, should become the property of defendant; and defendant claims that plaintiff violated these conditions of the contract and thereby damaged defendant in the sum of $50, for. which defendant counterclaims. The contention of the defendant as to the conditions of the contract is sustained by the lease itself and by the rules and regulations indorsed thereon and made, by the terms of the lease, a part of the contract.

The judgment in favor of the plaintiff must be reversed.

Present, Gildersleeve, Seabury and Lehman, JJ.

Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide event.