Court Opinion

ID: 9831285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:59:39.55129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:33.562114
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
It is insisted that because the landlord refused to accept Fison as its tenant the relation of landlord and tenant must have existed between D'avis and Fison because the latter, of necessity, was somebody’s tenant. This does not follow because Fison may have been the assignee of Davis and a trespasser as to the landlord refusing to assent to the assignment.
Moreover, the appeal was not presented upon the theory that the landlord refused its assent to the use and occupancy of the premises by Fison. The only proposition in the brief expressly assumed that the landlord assented thereto but asserted that Fison was the tenant of Davis because' the landlord refused to release Davis and accept Fison as its tenant and look to him for the rentals. This the landlord had the right to do. Cauble v. Hanson (Tex. Civ. App.) 224 S. W. 922, and Id. (Tex. Com. App.) 249 S. W. 175.
Nor do we think that the consent of the landlord has anything to do with determining the legal effect of the contract as between Davis and Fison. The effect of that contract as between the parties thereto is measured by its own terms, and nothing the landlord might or might not do would alter the legal effect of same as between them.
Of course, the tenant may not sublet or assign without the consent of the landlord; but, if he does, the subletting or assignment is not a nullity as claimed by appellant, for the landlord may waive his right to cancel the lease. And the record in this *243case dearly shows that the landlord, if it did refuse to consent to the assignment, waived any right of forfeiture which accrued in his favor.
The original brief and the motion for rehearing, in large measure, are devoted to a discussion of the relation which arose between Eison and the landlord, but that is not the question at issue. The controlling question is what was the relation between Davis and Fison, and, according to the agreed statement, Davis parted with his interest in the lease for its entire term, reserved no rever-sionary interest of any character and nothing to show that it was the intention of Davis and Fison to create the relation of 'landlord and tenant instead of assignor and assignee. Under such circumstances, all of the authorities, as we view them, treat the transaction as an assignment and not a subletting.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.