Court Opinion

ID: 9639079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:04:12.905091+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:12.304091
License: Public Domain

MACK, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
In Meehan v. King the lease had but two months to run after the receiver was appointed. Neither receiver nor trustee in bankruptcy affirmed or disaffirmed the lease. Neither of them actually used the property in the administration of the bankrupt estate. The lessor sought to charge the estate on the theory that a failure to disaffirm was 'equivalent to an affirmance. If there had been an affirmance of the lease for that period, the lessor would clearly have been entitled not to the reasonable value but to the contractual amount of the rent. His claim for the latter amount was in the circumstances properly denied.
In the instant ease there was a disaffirmance by the receiver in the equity suit. While the lessor’s claim is for an amount equivalent to the rent reserved in the lease, the substantial basis of his claim is that the constructive possession by the receiver deprived Mm during that period of Ms right to interfere with *26that possession, and for that reason he is entitled to the rental value of the property.
In my judgment, the landlord is entitled either to be granted leave to enforce the common-law remedies to reobtain possession of the leasehold property, which lie would have had but for the receivership, or to be compensated at the fair and reasonable valué of the premises pending the determination by the receiver or the court as to affirmance or disaffirmance of the lease. In the case of constructive possession he should, however, make prompt application to the court for such alternative relief. Ordinarily, in my judgment, the court of equity in the exercise of its discretion would condition the delay in the decision of the receiver as to affirmance or disaffirmance by providing for the allowance of the reasonable rental value of the property as an administration claim. No such application, however, is stated .to have been made. If it were made and denied, the question of whether such a denial under all the circumstances was an abuse of discretion would be determinable on appeal.
Here, however, the lessor apparently acquiesced in the delay. As the estate had no actual use of the premises and was not thereby enriched, the mere fact that the lessor was deprived of the opportunity to regain his possession and thus may have suffered some pecuniary loss, does not, in my judgment, entitle him to payment either of the fair rental value or of the reserved rent during the interval, as an administration expense.
For this reason I coneur in the result.