Court Opinion

ID: 5435229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-08 17:52:44.583154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:31:47.880847
License: Public Domain

On petition for rehearing, Crocker, J. delivered the following opinion—Norton, J. concurring:
The questions involved in this case are important, and as the counsel for the plaintiff in their petition for a rehearing have referred to some authorities not cited before, it may be proper to notice them.
Whether, in equity, a vendee, in a simple contract to convey at some future time, which is silent about the possession, has a right to take and hold possession before the conveyance, is a question not before us, as the contract in this case specially gives him the right of possession. But it is now urged that this right of possession extends only to the time that the purchase money became due, and if the money was not then paid the right of possession in the ven*619dee ceased, and the same revested in the vendor. In this the plaintiff is in error. Such are not the terms of the contract, nor is such the proper equitable construction of it. There are no words in the agreement thus limiting the right of possession vested in the vendee. In support of the position that the law so construes it, the plaintiff cites us to the cases of Wright v. Moore (21 Wend. 230), and Mitchell v. De Roche (1 Yeates, 12).
The case in Wendell was an action of ejectment at law, and therefore governed purely by legal principles. The agreement of the vendor contained a covenant that the vendee might “ have quiet and full possession of the said premises at any time after the payment ” of the first installment of the purchase money. The Court say that “ though the defendant’s equitable title may be clear and perfect, its enforcement belongs exclusively to chancery,” But even without that remark the Court based its judgment entirely upon the legal principles governing such cases, and it does not, therefore, govern the present case. The case in Yeates is not in point, as it does not appear that there was any agreement on the part of the vendor that the vendee should take and hold the possession. That was an early case in Pennsylvania, in which these questions do not seem to have been fully considered, and it is substantially overruled by the later decisions of that Court referred to in our former opinion.
The question whether a demand and notice to quit is necessary in a case of this kind was not presented by the defendant as a point in the case, and the reference to it in our former opinion was not for the purpose of settling or determining it, but merely as showing how the rights of vendor and vendee were treated by writers upon this subject and the authorities.
The plaintiff insists that the decision of this Court leaves her with a mere barren title, and that leaving the defendant in possession virtually divests her of her title. The plaintiff purchased the mere legal title, subject to the equitable title of the defendant. Equity deems the interest on the purchase money as an equivalent for the value of the rents and profits, or the use and occupation of the premises by the defendant. Equity treats the vendee as the owner of the property, and as such entitled to its rents and profits; *620and the vendor as the owner of the purchase money, and as such entitled to the interest thereon. (2 Sugden on Vendors, 254, 793, citing numerous cases.) If the plaintiff is the owner of or entitled to receive the purchase money due from the defendant, she has an ample remedy to enforce the vendor’s lien in equity, and have the interest purchased by the defendant sold for the payment of the debt, and the interest she will receive will be an equivalent for the possession. If she is not entitled to the purchase money, she holds the mere legal title, subject to the equities of the defendant under the agreement. As that agreement gives the defendant the right to the possession, to oust him from that possession would be divesting him of a right vested in him by the agreement. The holder of the demand for the purchase money has the right to grant the defendant such lenity as he sees fit about its payment, and the plaintiff has no right to complain that the defendant has not paid the purchase money, unless it is due to her, when she has an ample remedy for enforcing that demand. We see no valid reason for granting a rehearing in this case.
The rehearing is therefore denied.