Court Opinion

ID: 9760731
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:10:58.92278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:15.714691
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Senior Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I concur in the judgment, for I agree that the landlord’s complaint in the action for possession alleged only that the tenant had failed to pay a single month’s rent, and nothing more. The tenant thus had no notice of any other claim, and the judgment in the landlord’s favor, based on a claim that was not before the trial court, was erroneous. As the per curiam opinion suggests, the trial court and the landlord were in error in asserting that any claim other than the one alleged in the landlord’s complaint could support the judgment for possession. Accordingly, we must reverse the summary judgment in the landlord’s favor.
I am unable, however, to join the latter part of the per curiam opinion, which accepts, arguendo, the trial court’s erroneous reading of the complaint, and which suggests an alternative ground for reversal. This is so because (1) in my opinion, that part of the opinion is unnecessary to our disposition of the appeal; and (2) the statutory provisions on which the court relies were not cited in the briefs or otherwise raised or addressed by the parties, either in this court or in the trial court. Difficult issues should not be decided without the adversarial crossing of swords.