Case ID: ill-app_191/html/0517-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice Brown", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

George Siegfried, Defendant in Error, v. George Fritze, Plaintiff in Error.
    Gen. No. 19,660.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Fbank H. Graham, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the March term, 1914.
    Affirmed.
    Opinion filed March 8, 1915.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action in forcible detainer by George Siegfried against George Fritze for the possession of a six room flat. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff for possession, defendant prosecutes a writ of error.
    Before the tenancy began defendant paid two dollars to plaintiff and took the following receipt:
    “Chicago, October 14, 1911.
    Received of G. P. Fritze Two Dollars to apply on November 1911 rent for first flat at 3423 Perry St., rental to be at the rate of $20 per month for the year. To be put in first-class repair as agreed.
    Geo. Siegfried.”
    Plaintiff’s claim was for forty dollars for rent alleged to be due for May and June, 1913, upon a basis of twenty dollars per month. On June 4, 1913, plaintiff gave defendant a statutory five days’ notice to pay the forty dollars in question or to terminate the tenancy. On June 9,1913, defendant offered to pay twen-' ty dollars but no more, insisting that that was all that was due. Plaintiff declined to receive anything less than forty dollars and brought action for rent and possession.
    Plaintiff testified that the condition of the tenancy was that the rent of twenty dollars should be payable in advance on the first of the month; that he told the defendant so when he called to rent the flat and that for three or four months the defendant paid the rent in advance.
    
      Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Landlord and tenant, § 5
      
      —where lease is distinguished from receipt. In an action of forcible detainer, an instrument purporting to be a receipt for a certain sum to apply on a subsequent month’s rent for a certain flat at a certain rate per month for the year, with the condition that the premises were to be put in first-class repair as agreed, held to be a receipt rather than a lease containing all the conditions of the renting.
    2. Landlord and tenant, § 325*—sufficiency of evidence to show rent payable in advance. In an action of forcible detainer evidence held sufficient to sustain the court’s finding that the rent was payable in advance and to warrant a judgment in favor of plaintiff for possession of the premises in question.
    Defendant denied that there was anything said about payment in advance and contended that the rent was not payable until the end of the month, but he himself introduced several receipts which showed that he did not wait until the end of the month before paying.
    C. L. Cassiday, for plaintiff in error.
    Martin C. Koebel, for defendant in error; E. M. Seymour, of counsel.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, game topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice Brown

delivered the opinion of the court.