Pharis v. Gere

The action was brought to recover damages for a forcible detainer of two salt blocks, identified in the evidence as numbers 22 and 23. The plaintiff had a verdict, which the general term had reversed. On the trial, the court was asked to charge that there was no evidence of a forcible detainer of block 23. The request was refused and an exception taken to the refusal, and it is upon that exception that the appellate court, so far as its opinion indicates, founded its order for a new trial. We are not contented with that decision. The argument at the bar, and a

The two blocks were about thirty feet apart* but within the same enclosure. They were held in a common ownership, though by separate leases, from the state. They had been used and operated together, but could be utilized separately, and had no necessary connection. Both were out of repair, and required preparation and expenditure to put them in condition for use, block 23 being much the most dilapidated and in need of the most extensive repairs. The owners of the two blocks were the plaintiff and his brother who was a lunatic and in charge of a committee of his person and estate. The Syracuse Fine Salt Company was a corporation duly organized, the ultimate purpose of which was to control the salt manufacture of the entire reservation. This was planned to be effected by leasing all the salt blocks, and operating them under one management and so controlling the supply and preventing variation or diminution of prices. The success of the project depended upon the ability to bring all the salt blocks into the combination, and so master the market. In carrying out the plan a difficulty was encountered as to blocks 22 and 23. The plaintiff had executed a lease, but hesitated to deliver it, and placed, it in escrow in the hands of an officer of the company, and to become operative only upon condition. The committee of the lunatic, without authority of the court, had executed a lease for ten years, but possession of the blocks had not been given, and was withheld. In this emergency the Fine-, Salt Company passed a resolution directing the defendant to-take possession of blocks 22 and 23. The evidence shows that this was the only resolution of the kind passed by the corporation, and indicates the knowledge of its members-that there was a difficulty to be overcome, and their determination to get possession, at all hazards, and defend it as-best they could.

Under this resolution the defendant acted. He so testifies. The direction was to take possession of both blocks and what he did was adequate for that purpose and effected that precise result. He went to the enclosure and entered it. He carried with him the means of forcing the lock which he expected to encounter and a new lock to supply its place and give him control. He removed plaintiff’s lock and put on his own. Thereafter he met Pharis at block 22 and the-violence and personal struggle for possession and control which both sides detail with but few and unimportant differences occured. That violence was aimed at the possession of both blocks and secured the possession of both. The defendant testified “it was in my mind to take possession of the blocks;” speaking of his men he added “I went there to see that they took and kept possession of the blocks;” he told Pharis that he was not able to cope with

But the reversal by the general term is now defended upon the ground that the lease from the committee of the lunatic was valid so far at least as to justify the entry of the defendant and repel the charge of a forcible detainer .

It is conceded that the committee had no right to lease the interest of the lunatic by virtue of any order of the court, but it is asserted that such right existed where the term was not longer than five years by force of the common law and the statute, and while this lease was for ten years, it was nevertheless good as a lease from year to year, and justified the possession taken.

I am not satisfied that the committee of a lunatic ever had the common law right which is asserted. A survey of the earlier authorities, cited quite fully upon the briefs of both parties, has led me to the conclusion that the committee of a lunatic has no title to or interest in the latter’s real estate; that he becomes its mere custodian or bailiff, and is such solely as the agent or representative of the court; and has no independent power to dispose of the real estate in any manner whatever. In substance that, at least, is the doctrine of this court.

In the Matter of the Application of Otis ( 101 N. Y., 581 ) it was declared that the committee had no interest in the property; that his possession was the possession of the court; and his authority that of its agent acting under its direction. The provisions of the statute in force at the time fully accord with this doctrine. Laws of 1874, chap. 446, p. 571. Section 1 of title 2 vests in the supreme court the care and custody of lunatics and their estates. The committee thus becomes merely the officer or agent of the court, and has no authority except such as comes from that source, or is vested in him by statute. If the real estate is to be sold, application must be made to the court and its order obtained. Section 6. If a lease is necessary to ac

That section reads: “The real estate of any idiot, lunatic or person of unsound mind, or person incapable of conducting his owTn affairs in consequence of habitual drunkenness shall not be leased for more than five years, or mortgaged or aliened or disposed of otherwise than herein directed.” The respondent claims that the phrase “otherwise than herein directed,” relates as well to leases for more than five years as to mortgages and sales, and so the order of the court is needed only where a lease is proposed for a longer term than five years. I seriously doubt that ■construction. All authority to deal with the lunatic’s estate had been previously vested in the court, and none outside of its direction given to the committee; and the final provision seems rather intended to prohibit absolutely leases for a longer period than five years even by the order of the court, and not by a doubtful and uncertain implication to give to the committee an independent authority within that limit.

In the revision accomplished by the Code of Civil Procedure the language was changed for some reason about which we need not now inquire ; nor is it essential even to finally determine the question of construction raised upon the terms of section 27 of the act of 1874, for what is here termed a lease of the two salt blocks, and was put in that form, was in reality a contract of a very different character, and going so far beyond the characteristics of an ordinary lease as to be void without the authority of the court, even if a letting in the customary manner for a short term was within the independent authority of the committee. In the guise of a lease the two salt blocks were put into a combination to control the entire manufacture, and in such manner that the rental was dependent upon the success of -the enterprise, and was something or nothing as its affairs should prosper or prove unfortunate. The lease put in evidence provides for the payment by the salt company of an annual rent of two per cent upon a valuation of the premises to be made as thereinafter set forth, and which

If any surplus still remained it was to be divided pro rata between capital and valuations. It is thus apparent that, under the form of a lease, the committee of the lunatic assumed to put the latter’s property in the complete control of a corporation, subject to its business success or failure so far as compensation was concerned, reserving in the main no real rent and even the nominal rent to be fixed by others, and contracting solely for speculative results. Whatever may be said as to an independent power of a committee to make an ordinary and customary lease for a short term, I have no doubt that a contract like the one before us, running for ten years, tying up the lunatie’s estate to the fortune of an untried experiment, never was, either at common law or under the statute, within the authority of a committee acting independently of the court. It was a lease only technically and in form. Substantially it was a transfer of the blocks for the period named upon a consideration speculative, contingent and doubtful, and making

A further effort to sustain the reversal of the general term was founded upon the partition proceeding instituted by the plaintiff. The judgment in that action was not pleaded as a bar to this nor were the parties the same.. Neither the present defendant nor the salt-company were parties when it was rendered and they were in no manner bound by it. As evidence of possession by plaintiff during the alleged detainer his complaint was admissible, but the salt company’s answer alleged possession by it and the-question became one of fact upon all the evidence in the case. ■

Some other questions have been examined but without enabling us to sustain the reversal.

The judgment of the general term should be reversed, and that of the circuit affirmed, with costs.

All concur, except Huger, Oh. J., not sitting.