Case ID: stew_3/html/0050-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By JUDGE WHITE. The", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Martin, Bradley, & Co. v. Searcy.
    1. Where a lessee purchases the fee, and obtains a conveyance which is silent as to the rent, it operates as an extinguishment of the rent for the.* remainder of the term.
    2- And the case is the same, where the vendor had himself, pending the lease, purchased of the lessor, who was the original owner, the fee; and with it a note given by the lessee for the rent, and afterwards sold the fee to the lessee.
    Assumpsit in Madison County Court, by Jesse Searcy against'Martin, Bradley. & Co; The action was to recover a balance claimed on a written agreement, made by the defendants, Martin, Bradley, & Co., on the 14th May, 1825, by which they promised to pay to one G. D Taylor $450, for the rent of a store house occupied by them, for twelve months, to commence on the 8th of July next after the date. The instrument was assigned by Taylor to Searcy. The defendants pleaded the genera] issue, and also a special plea, setting forth that during thd pen-dency of the lease, on the 24th of April, 1826, they purchased the store house of Searcy, who had previously purchased the premises of Taylorfand that Searcy had executed his deed of conveyance to them, which was exhibited in the plea, bearing the last mentioned date, and in which nothing was said about the rent; and they averred further, that on the Slh of July, 1826, when the rent became due, they did pay to the plaintiff $357, being the rateable pro portion of rent due up to the time of the conveyance to them; insisting that no more was due from them. To this plea, the plaintiff demurred. At August term, 1828, the County Court sustained the demurrer, and a verdict was found for $101 70, for the plaintiff, for which the Court, rendered judgment.
    The sustaining the demurrer, is the error assigned by-Martin, Bradley, & Co., who appealed to this Court.
    ThomítoN, for the plaintiff in error.
    The plea was good. The question raised by it, is, if when a lessor, by absolute deed of conveyance, sell the premises in fee to the lessee, the rent due for the unexpired remainder of the term be not thereby extinguished? On the sale from Taylor to Searcy, the appellants became the tenants of Searcy, and liable to pay the rent to him, and to him only, after notice of the grant, unless in the deed from Taylor, the rent was expressly reserved; fo.r rent passes by the grant of the reversion impliedly.  When Searcy sold to the appellants, he was owner of the lee, and of the rent; which makes the ease precisely the same as if Taylor at the same time had sold to them directly. Such sale would extinguish the rent clue from the lessee. It is certain that the grant of the remainder or reversion to a stranger would pass the rent;
      a fortiori should it be lost when the grant is to the lessee.. The consideration of rent is protection in the enjoyment of the land. It surely cannot be just that one should pay for the enjoyment of his own property.
    It-is objected that this doctrine might be injurious in this way, that the lessor might sell the nóte for the rent, and afterwards convey the premises to the lessee, and that thereby, the assignee, not knowing the consideration, might be injured. In this case, the note is the lease, and shews the consideration for which it'was given; butifi.t, did not, it would rest exactly on the same footing as any other note, so far as third persons are concerned. By our statute of assignments, the maker has the benefit of all payments, &c. made before notice of the assignment, Now if the purchaser of the note for' rent should give notice of the assignment to the tenant; he could no mor,e extinguish the debt by purchasing the fee, than by paying it to the lessor. If he had notice of the transfer, he sfiould purchase (he fee for so much less? as the rent should amount to.
    
    McCluNQ, for the appellee.
    
      
       Coke Litt. 317 a Noy 14.
    
    
      
       Gilbert on rents 173 183 184.
    
    
      
       Doug. 281, 282. Laws of Ala. 238 Sec. 18.
    
    
      
       1 Marsh. 574. Blk. com 176-7-8.
    
   By JUDGE WHITE. The

question plainly raised by (he state of the record is, whether, when the tenant has obtained the fee by absolute conveyance, before the termination of the lease, it does not operate an extinguishment of the rent for the remainder of the term? If a lease be made reserving rent, and the lessor grant the reversion to another, the rent passes to the grantee, although no mention be made of it in the deed, rent being incident to the reversion. Then according to this principle, when Taylor conveyed the land to Searcy in fee, making n0 reserv-aiion 0f rent, he conveyed the latter as incident to the former, and Searcy was the legal owner of both the fee-simple and the rent In this state of things, had the tenant, paid the rent subsequently accruing to Taylor, he would have been still liable to Searcy, unless the payment had been made without notice of the conveyance. In that event, he would have been protected by the proviso of our statute, made to do away the old doctrine of attornment., an¿ which is almost an exact copy of that of 4 Anne, But S.earcy, before the expiration of the year, conveyed the fee .to the tenants. They then, by the effect of the same principle, became entitled to the rent for the remainder, of the term. And unless we could suppose the absurdity of a man. being bound to himself, that portion of the' rent was, by this last conveyance, completely extinguished. This is certainly the general- doctrine, nor do we gee j^g application to the case before us, is rendered at all doubtful, by the apprehension of injury accruing from its establishment, to persons who might trade for notes giv.en for rent without, notice of the conveyance of .the fee to the tenant. In the first place, the instrument here sued on bore on its own face evidence of its being a lease, which was sufficient to put assignees on the inquiry.; and again, Searcy was the holder of this instrument at the very time he made the conveyance, without any reservation as to the residue of the rent, and being chargeable with, a knowledge of the legal effect of his own acts' upon his. own rights, should not complain. Then, whatever may be the situation of the assignee of a note giv-smibr rent, without, notice, whidh it will be time enough to determine when the question arises, the defendant in error occupies a different situation, and is clearly to the operation of the ordinary principle. The judgment must be reversed, and if desired, the cause may here-manded. Reversed and remanded. ■

Judge Taylor, had been of counsel below and did not sit. 
      
      . Noy's Max 14, Pa 18 Co. Lit. 317 a.
     
      
       Laws of Ala. 238.
     
      
       Gilbert on Rents 183-4.