Case ID: misc_122/html/0652-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Guy, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Walter J. Salmon, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Louise Zeller, Defendant, Respondent.
    Supreme Court, Appellate Term, First Department,
    March, 1924.
    Contracts — consideration — action to recover amount of check given by defendant on execution of lease as advance payment of rent — execution of lease legal consideration for check.
    The execution of a lease is a valid consideration for a cheek given by defendant as advance payment for rent. It is error in an action upon the check to dismiss the complaint for lack of consideration.
    Appeal by plaintiff from a judgment of the Municipal Court of the city of New York, borough of Manhattan, ninth district, in favor of defendant dismissing complaint, with costs.
    
      Choate & Lee (Harold Lee, of counsel), for appellant.
    
      Max Greenberger, for respondent.
   Guy, J.

Plaintiff appeals from a judgment entered by direction of the court in favor of defendant dismissing the complaint in an action brought to recover the amount of a check for fifty dollars, given by defendant on account of rent of a store leased by her from plaintiff.

The answer pleads lack of consideration. Defendant testified that on September 25, 1922, being threatened with a great increase in rent of the store then occupied by her, she undertook to rent another store from plaintiff, which was to be ready October 20, 1922, and gave plaintiff a check for fifty dollars as advance payment of rent; that next day learning from some workmen employed on plaintiff’s store that the store would not be ready until November fifteenth, she made a new lease of her old store at an increased rent and stopped payment of the check. Plaintiff denied that his store was not ready until November 15, 1922, and testified that it was actually ready for occupancy on October 15, 1922, but remained vacant six or seven months thereafter.

The facts testified to by defendant constitute no defense to the action. She entered into a contract with plaintiff which constituted a valid consideration for the check.

•Judgment reversed, with thirty dollars costs, and judgment directed in favor of plaintiff for fifty dollars, with interest and costs.

Burr and Proskauer, JJ., concur.

Judgment reversed.