Case Name: Nod-Away Company, Inc., Appellant, v. Robert E. Carroll, Respondent
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1925-05-12
Citations: 240 N.Y. 252
Docket Number: 
Parties: Nod-Away Company, Inc., Appellant, v. Robert E. Carroll, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 240
Pages: 252–256

Head Matter:
Nod-Away Company, Inc., Appellant, v. Robert E. Carroll, Respondent.
Landlord and tenant — emergency rent laws — action for rent — defense that rent exacted is unreasonable and oppressive applies where lease was made after enactment of statute establishing such defense — questions not raised below not considered on appeal.
1. The defense that the rent exacted for a dwelling is unreasonable and oppressive was intended by the Legislature to apply not only to leases made before the enactment of the statute by which the defense was first established (L. 1920, eh. 944) but also to leases made thereafter.
(Argued March 30, 1925;
decided May 12, 1925.)
'2. A question as to the constitutionality of a statute not shown by the record to have been raised in the courts below will not be considered by the Court of Appeals.
Nod-Away Co. v. Carroll, 209 App. Div. 907, affirmed.
Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered July 3, 1924, affirming a judgment in favor of defendant entered upon a verdict.
W. C. Prime for appellant.
Joseph A. Corbalis for respondent.
The defendant, respondent, or tenant herein, properly availed himself of the defense offered by the Rent Laws. (L. 1922, ch. 664; Baldwin v. Belcher, 197 N. Y. Supp. 743.)

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
We think the defense that the rent exacted for a dwelling is unreasonable and oppressive was intended by the Legislature to apply, not only to leases made before the enactment of the statute by which the defense was first established (L. 1920, ch. 944), but also to leases made thereafter. If this were not so, there would have been no sense in providing that the act was not to extend to buildings then in course of construction or afterwards constructed (L. 1920, ch, 944, § 10). The meaning is made still clearer by amendatory statutes (L. 1921, ch. 434; L. 1922, ch. 664); and by the statute now in force (L. 1923, ch. 892), it has been put beyond the realm of controversy.
We do not discuss the questions of constitutional law that have been pressed upon us by the appellant, for the record does not show that they were raised in the courts below (Dodge v. Cornelius, 168 N. Y. 242). The case was tried upon the theory that the single and decisive question was one of statutory construction.
The judgment should be affirmed with costs.