Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/258/242.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 15:35:20+00:00

Document:
[258 U.S. 242, 243] Mr. Louis Marshall, of New York City, for plaintiffs in error.
A motion to dismiss or affirm was filed in each case, on the ground that each is ruled by the decision in Marcus Brown Holding Co., Inc., v. Feldman et al., 256 U.S. 170 . 41 Sup. Ct. 465, and both were postponed to the hearing on the merits.
By these acts a number of changes were made in the substantive law, and a number of amendments to remedial statutes, of the state, for the purpose of securing to tenants in possession of houses or apartments, occupied for dwelling purposes, in described cities, the legal right to continue in possession until November 1, 1922, by the payment, or securing the payment, of a reasonable rental, to be determined by the courts, and for the purpose also [258 U.S. 242, 244] of encouraging the building of dwellings by providing under specified conditions for their exemption from local taxation.
In No. 287 it is averred: That the defendant is a tenant holding over after expiration of his lease; that he refuses to surrender possession as he stipulated in his lease to do, and that he claims the right to retain possession under chapters 942 and 947 of the Emergency Housing Laws, which suspend the right of action to recover possession except under specified conditions, which are not applicable. A general demurrer to this complaint presented the question of the constitutionality of chapters 942 and 947 of the laws assailed, and the state courts all sustained them as valid. [258 U.S. 242, 245] In terms the acts involved are 'emergency' statutes, and, designed as they were by the Legislature to promote the health, morality, comfort and peace of the people of the state, they are obviously a resort to the police power to promote the public welfare. They are a consistent interrelated group of acts essential to accomplish their professed purposes.
In the enactment of these laws the Legislature of New York did not depend on the knowledge which its members had of the existence of the crises relied upon. In January, 1919, almost two years before the laws complained of were enacted, the Governor of the state appointed a 'Reconstruction Commission,' and about the same time the Legislature appointed a committee known as the 'Joint Legislative Committee on Housing,' to investigate and report upon housing conditions in the cities of the state, and a few months later the mayor of New York appointed a similar committee. The membership of these committees comprised many men and women representative of the best intelligence, character, and public service in the state and nation, their investigations were elaborate and thorough, and in their reports, placed before the Legislature, [258 U.S. 242, 246] all agree: That there was a very great shortage in dwelling house accommodations in the cities of the state to which the acts apply; that this condition was causing widespread distress; that extortion in most oppressive forms was flagrant in rent profiteering; that, for the purpose of increasing rents, legal process was being abused and eviction was being resorted to as never before; and that unreasonable and extortionate increases of rent had frequently resulted in two or more families being obliged to occupy an apartment adequate only for one family, with a consequent overcrowding, which was resulting in insanitary conditions, disease, immorality, discomfort, and widespread social discontent.
The argument heard in these cases and further examination of the subject confirms us in the assumption made in the Marcus Brown Co. Case, 256 U.S. 170, 198 , 41 S. Sup. Ct. 465, that the emergency declared existed when the acts were passed.
It is strenuously argued, as it was in Block v. Hirsh, 256 U.S. 135 , 41 Sup. Ct. 458, and in the Marcus Brown Co. Case, supra, that the relation of landlord and tenant is a private one, and is not so affected by a public interest as to render it subject to regulation by the exercise of the police power.
It is not necessary to discuss this contention at length for so early as 1906, the Tenement House Act of New York, enacted in 1901 (Laws 1901, c. 334), was assailed as an unconstitutional interference with the right of property in land, [258 U.S. 242, 247] on substantially all of the grounds now urged against the Emergency Housing Laws, this court, in a per curiam opinion affirmed a decree of the Court of Appeals of New York (Tenement House Department of the City of New York v. Katie Moeschen, 179 N. Y. 325, 72 N. E. 231), sustaining regulations requiring large expenditures by landlords as a valid exercise of the police power. Katie Moeschen v. Tenement House Department of the City of New York, 203 U.S. 583 , 27 Sup. Ct. 781. To require uncompensated expenditures very certainly affects the right of property in land as definitely, and often as seriously, as regulation of the amount of rent that may be charged for it can do. Many decisions of this court were cited as sufficient to justify the summary disposition there made of the question, as one even then so settled by authority as not to be longer open to discussion.
In the opinion in Block v. Hirsh, supra, this court cites in support of this same conclusion, under the circumstances there disclosed, which are not to be distinguished from those presented in this case, the later cases following: Strickley v. Highland Boy Gold Mining Co., 200 U.S. 527 , 26 Sup. Ct. 301, 4 Ann. Cas. 1174; Welch v. Swasey, 214 U.S. 91 , 29 Sup. Ct. 567; Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U.S. 531 , 34 Sup. Ct. 359; St. Louis Poster Advertising Co. v. St. Louis, 249 U.S. 269 , 39 Sup. Ct. 274; Perley v. North Carolina, 249 U.S. 510 , 39 Sup. Ct. 357.
In the opinion in the Marcus Brown Co. Case, it is said that the defendant tenants, holding over after their lease [258 U.S. 242, 248] had expired relied upon chapters 942 and 947 of the New York Housing Laws, and that the landlord challenged their validity. But this court held them valid. We have seen that in No. 287, here under consideration, the defendant tenant is holding over after the expiration of his lease, and that he justifies under chapters 942 and 947. Thus this No. 287 presents precisely the same questions of fact and law as the Marcus Brown Co. Case presented, and must be ruled by it.
The first is that the defense sustained in this case, by the court below, was provided for by chapter 136 of the Laws of New York of 1920, in effect when the lease involved was executed. [258 U.S. 242, 249] The provision was simply carried into chapter 944 when that chapter was amended in September, 1920, and, of course, a lease made subsequent to the enactment of a statute cannot be impaired by it. Oshkosh Water Works Co. v. Oshkosh, 187 U.S. 437, 446 , 23 S. Sup. Ct. 234.
The standard of the statute is as definite as the 'just compensation' standard adopted in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, and therefore ought to be sufficiently definite to satisfy the Constitution. United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U.S. 81 , 41 Sup. Ct. 298, 14 A. L. R. 1045, dealing with definitions of crime, is not applicable.

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