Court Opinion

ID: 9659988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:00:26.927311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:13.646263
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
YOUNG, Justice.
In original opinion points 1 and 2 of appellant are each sustained — an inconsistency. Whether plaintiff at time of injury was an'invitee of defendant cannot simultaneously be both a question of law and one of fact. And if a question of fact be involved, as assumed by point 2, same was a material element of plaintiff’s cause of action- and therefore not waived by defendant’s failure vto request its submission.
It is appellee’s contention that plaintiff at time of injury -was an employee of Glore, Forgan & Company-Meyer & Achtschin, a joint venture, to which enterprise Meyer & Achtschin, - defendant’s lessee, had sublet without its consent a part of the premises, thereby violating, paragraph 4 of the lease prohibiting subletting without consent of lessor; and that plaintiff, being an employee of a business unlawfully on the premises, was no more than a trespasser to whom defendant owed no duty except not to wilfully injure her. The facts concerning the status of plaintiff on the premises are not disputed, and therefore readily determinable as a matter of law. Meyer & Achtschin, petroleum engineering consultants and co-partners, ■ had leased space in defendant’s building (3,496 sq. ft.) beginning February 1, 1954, for a-two-year term. ■ In a written contract dated March 2, 1955, certain individuals designated as ■ “owners” had employed Meyer & Achtschin and Glore, Forgan & Company as their agents to purchase- royalty interests up to a subscribed amount; said agents to furnish office facilities and personnel, and as a part consideration for services rendered these agents were to receive 15% of the money so invested as administrative expense. Certain of the office space was allocated to the venture, so-called, with that part of the rental charged to administrative expense, as was also the salary of plaintiff. Manifestly, the foregoing arrangement constituted no subletting of- the premises by Meyer & Achtschin to Glore, Forgan & Company within meaning of defendant’s lease. Under terms of this March 1955 agreement, the latter simply -became a partner along with lessee in performance of required duties as' joint agents. “A subletting creates a new estate, dependent upon, or carved out of, but distinct from, the original leasehold. * * * It has been held that- permitting a third person to enter into the joint occupation of the premises with 'the lessee is not -necessarily a subletting’, and that the fact that a lessee conducting a business .on the demised premises takes a third person into partnership with him and thus lets such third person into joint possession of the premises is not a breach of a covenant against subletting.”_ 32 A.J., sec.. 393, pp. 331, 332. (Emphasis mine.) See also Markowitz v. Greenwall Theatrical Circuit Co., Tex.Civ.App., 75 S.W. 74, 76, reversed on other grounds, 97 Tex. 479, 79 S.W. 1069, 65 L.R.A. 302.
Otherwise, I concur -in the conclusions reached in original opinion of affirmance on condition of remittitur. -,