Case Name: VANARSDALEN v. WHITAKER
Court: Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1874-06-10
Citations: 2 Foster 203
Docket Number: 
Parties: VANARSDALEN v. WHITAKER.
Judges: 
Reporter: Legal Chronicle reports of Cases decided in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Foster)
Volume: 2
Pages: 203–204

Head Matter:
In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. In Equity.
VANARSDALEN v. WHITAKER.
Equity will not restrain a proceeding by landlord against tenant lor possession upon grounds, such as change of title, which may he asserted by the tenant in the proceeding itself.
Motion to dissolve special injunction.

Opinion:
Opinion delivered June 10, 1874, by
Peirce. J.
This bill is filed to restrain the defendant, Robert Whitaker, from proceeding at law as landlord under the act of 1830, to recover possession of the premises No. 230 South Sixth street.
The plaintiffs allege that they are not tenants of Whitaker/but that they are vendees in possession of the premises under a contract of purchase of them from him. If so, they can defend at law in the ' proceeding to recover possession, by showing that the relation of landlord and tenant does not subsist between the parties; or that if it did, it has been determined by the contract of purchase, and possession under it, which they now set up as the ground of this bill.
The remedy sought by the plaintiff in the landlord and tenant proceeding is purely legal, and the defence is purely legal. There is no .reason, therefore, why a court of equity should interfere.
It is unnecessary, and therefore improper, to express any opinion in this proceeding as to the legal effect of the papers on which the parties respectively rely, or on any of the questions which may arise in the proceeding before the alderman. The special injunction is dissolved.