Case ID: ny_248/html/0611-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Moses H. Harris, Appellant, v. The Bedell Company et al., Respondents.
    
      Specific performance — lease — provision for lapse of renewal clause if lessor shall “ acquire ” adjoining property and file plans for new building — acquisition of fee of property not required — long lease sufficient — complaint in action to compel specific performance of option to renew lease, dismissed.
    
    
      Harris v. Bedell Co., 222 App. Div. 467, affirmed.
    (Argued June 4, 1928;
    decided June 19, 1928.)
    Appeal from a judgment, entered February 17, 1928, upon an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, reversing a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a decision of the court on trial at Special Term and directing a dismissal of the complaint. The action was to compel specific performance of a claimed option of renewal in a sublease made by defendant Bedell Company to the plaintiff. The sublease provided that if the lessor, at least six months before the expiration, “ shall have acquired ” adjoining premises and shall have filed plans for a new building and given notice thereof to the tenant, then the option to renew shall cease. The lessor acquired the adjoining property on a long lease, filed plans for a new building and gave notice to the lessee within the required time. It was contended in this action that the word “ acquired ” means acquired in fee simple and, inasmuch as defendant had obtained but a lease of the premises, the option to renew was not affected.
    
      Nathan L. Miller, Lyttleton Fox, Harold Otis and Isidor Bregoff for appellant.
    
      Clarence J. Shearn, Adolph Bloch and Charles C. Smith for respondents.
   Judgment affirmed, with costs; no opinion.

Concur: Cardozo, Ch. J., Pound, Crane, Andrews, Lehman, Kellogg and O’Brien, JJ.