New-York tribune., 1920-12-25
Rent Cases Go
ToAppealCourt
For Final Test
Appellate Division Upholds
Lower Tribunals Rulings
on Many Provisions of
the Emergency Measures
Dissenting Opinion Filed
Chapter Denying Landlords
Right to Start E;ectment
Proceedings Held Illegal

Decisions upon the constitutionality
Of the new rent laws were handed
down yesterday by the Appellate
Division in several test cases which
have hitherto been rulen upon by the
Supreme Court and are now on the
way to final adjudication before the
Court of Appeals.
Landlords of the city found comfort
in one ruling, which set forth that the
chapter Of the emergency rent laws,
holding /. tenant immune from ejec-
tior at the expiration Of the lease was
unconstitutional.
Tenants, on the other hand, won
temporary victories, at least, when the
chapter holding that landio must
charge only a reasonable rental was
indorsed, as we'll as the provision
suspending the remedy Of dispossess
without court proceedings.
No permanent ruling will be forth
coming on any of these questions, how
ever, until the Court of Appeals has
considered the matter.
The justices of the Appellate Division
stood three to one in favor Of the
chapter upholding a reasonable rental.
In the case Of the Edgar A. Levy
Leasing Company against Jerome
Siegel, the plaintiff appealed from an
order that it could not as landlord
recover $3.50 a month rent for an apart
ment at 157 West Fifty-seventh Street,
even though the tenant had signed d
lease at the increased rate for a period
of two years from October /, 1920.
Laughlin Writes Opinion
Justice Laughlin wrote the majority
opinion, in which Justice Merrell and
Justice Greenbaum concurred Presid-
ing Justice Clarke and Justice Bowling
wrote dissenting opinion in which
they held the law unconstitutional
ut appeared to the Legislature. "
Justice Lauehlin wrote, that there
comm odatons, and that landlords gen
orally were taking undue advantage
thereof, and exacting unreasonable and
exorbitant rentals, and that collective
~ the landlords had q monopoly of
housing accommodations and would
have until houses and apartmen ents could
be built, and that there was no freedom
of contract on the part Of the tenants,
ii being therefore within the authority
Of the Legislature to authorize such a
defense as to all leases thereafter r
made, Hnd thereby limit recovery to a
reasonable rate, regardless of the
anouhC OF rent agreed upon as con-
dition Of making the lease"
The court also expressed the opinion
that the enactment will reduce evic-
tions to minimum, since it removes
the incentive of landlord to evict one
tenant and substitute another.
Two cases in which the Appellate
Division decided that Chapter 942 Of
the Laws Of 1920 was invalid, in so far
as it applied to these cases, were those
OF the H. D. H. Realty Corporation
against Murphy, and Balli against
O'Donnell. The plaintiffs are landlords
and the defendants are clerks of Mu-
nicipal Courts. The landlords sought
writs Of mandamus directing the court
clergs to issue dispossess warrants
against tenants of the plaintiffs, which
~he clerks had refused to do because
Of the provision in the new housing
law that no such warrants shall be
issued for two years, one month and
four days.
The Appellate Division held that the
chapter was invalid. in so far as it
forbids the issuance Of dispossess war.
rants pursuant TO final orders made ir
summary proceedings on which the is
suance OF the warrant had been sus-