Court Opinion

ID: 9553602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:32:41.312358+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:51.646646
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
LATOURETTE, J.
In plaintiff’s petition for rehearing, it is first urged that, “The Court erred in holding that the plaintiffs were not entitled to the full rental provided in the lease.” No attempt is made by plaintiffs to meet or overcome the authorities cited by this court in the original opinion. On the other hand, plaintiffs’ posi*642tion is that, * * the tenant cannot even question the landlord’s title as long as the tenant remains in possession, and the Court is in no position to do it for him.”
 The law denying a tenant’s right to dispute the landlord’s title is based on § 2-406, O.C.L.A., subsection 5, which reads as follows: “A tenant is not permitted to deny the title of his landlord at the time of the commencement of the relation;”, which simply means that a tenant cannot challenge the title of the landlord up to and including the time of execution of the lease. Matters affecting the title subsequent to the date of the execution of the lease are not within i:lié purview of the above section. This rule is well laid down in 32 Am. Jur., Landlord and Tenant, 119, § 114, as follows:
“The estoppel of the tenant extends only to a denial of the title which the landlord had at the time of the lease, and ordinarily a tenant is not estopped to deny that the landlord had any greater estate than is necessary to support the tenant’s lease. The estoppel is not applied except where the tenant undertakes to set up a title inconsistent with the idea that at the time he took the possession, the landlord had the title which was recognized between them, and is subject to well-settled exceptions arising from matters happening subsequent to the creation of the tenancy. While a tenant cannot dispute his landlord’s title so long as it remains as it was at the time the tenancy commenced, he may show that such title has during the tenancy expired or been transferred.”
Plaintiffs have cited a number of eases and feature the following:
In Kiernan v. Terry, 26 Or. 494, 500, 38 P. 671, this case being an action for rent, plaintiff, on August 1, *6431892, leased to defendant certain property for a “ ‘floating house or beer garden.’ ” The answer alleged that on November 1, 1891, defendant purchased from another party said floating house, and that plaintiff falsely represented to him that he was liable for rent. We said: “It is a well settled rule of law that a tenant, having taken possession under a lease, is estopped to deny his landlord’s title at the time it was made, so long as he continues in possession under the lease.” (Italics ours).
In Elwert v. Marley, 53 Or. 591, 99 P. 887, 101 P. 671, a suit was brought against one Olsen et al. to determine title to certain wharfage rights on the Willamette River. After the decree was rendered in favor of plaintiff, Olsen entered into a written lease with one Parelius, a grantee of plaintiff, covering the premises involved. On motion to dismiss the appeal, the court sustained the motion on the ground that Olsen by becoming a tenant of Parelius estopped himself from disputing the latter’s title.
In Treadgold v. Willard, 81 Or. 658, 160 P. 803, defendant’s answer in an action to recover rental from him by the landlord contained a further defense that the landlord had no wharfage or other rights which it undertook to lease by reason of a decree rendered against it in the circuit court of Coos County. It was asserted that by reason thereof the lessee never became the lessor’s tenant. We held that such a defense could not be entertained since the tenant could not dispute his landlord’s title.
In Security Savings & Trust Co. v. Ogden, 123 Or. 370, 261 P. 69, it appears that the plaintiff brought ejectment action against defendant, who claimed title by adverse possession. It appears that defendant leased *644the property in question from plaintiff’s predecessor in title. We held that he could not dispute his landlord’s title.
All of the above cases and others cited by plaintiff’s go to the proposition that a tenant cannot deny his landlord’s title at the time of the commencement of the relation, which is a different situation from that which we have in the ease at bar, where the landlord deeded away a part of the premises after the lease was entered into.
Plaintiffs next contend that we went outside the issues as made by the pleadings. It will be recalled that plaintiffs filed the usual complaint in an F.E.D. action. Defendants filed a general denial and then set up what they called an equitable defense. The ease was tried below as an equity suit and likewise before’ us. It is debatable whether under a general denial in an F.E.D. case defendant may show that a plaintiff lias transferred to a third party a portion of the leased premises although there is authority that such evidence is admissible on the theory that under the general issue any evidence is admissible which contradicts or directly tends to contradict the allegations which the plaintiff must prove in order to sustain his case. See Horn v. Davis, 70 Or. 498, 142 P. 544; Buff v. Schafer, 157 Minn. 485, 196 N.W. 661.
However, in the case at bar, plaintiffs themselves proved by their evidence that while the lease was in good standing they transferred a portion of the premises to the State Highway Commission. They are in no position to claim that defendants failed to plead such transfer in their answer because by their very showing they have disproved that they are entitled to the possession of the entire premises, and that they *645are entitled to the whole rent required by the lease, since, as we held in our original opinion, the transfer to the highway commission carried with it a proportionate share of the rental unless there was an agreement to the contrary, the record being devoid of evidence of the latter. Having disclosed that they had sold a portion of the premises to the highway commission, plaintiffs should have gone further, if it were a fact, and offered evidence that when they sold a portion of the premises to the highway commission, they reserved the entire rental under the lease.
An analogous situation would be where a plaintiff had sued on an account and at the trial gave evidence that prior to the filing of the action he had assigned to a third party a portion of the account. It certainly could not be contended that such plaintiff could recover on the entire account.
As pointed out in our original opinion, there is nothing in the record to show the proportionate share of the rental to which plaintiffs were entitled, and that, therefore, the evidence did not disclose whether or not defendants were in default to plaintiffs in their rental payments. Defendants not being in default in the payment of rental to plaintiffs, plaintiffs’ case fell by its own weight.
The other points assigned are directed to the equitable phase of the controversy, and since we have held that plaintiffs have not proved their case, it will be unnecessary to discuss them.
Petition for rehearing denied.