Anderson v. Busada

District of Columbia Court of Appeals

Anderson v. Busada

189 A.2d 130, 1963 D.C. App. LEXIS 330

CourtDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals

DecidedMarch 21, 1963

Docket3167

StatusPublished

This text of 189 A.2d 130 (Anderson v. Busada) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District of Columbia Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Anderson v. Busada, 189 A.2d 130, 1963 D.C. App. LEXIS 330 (D.C. 1963).

Pincite

Opinion

HOOD, Chief Judge.

The trial court awarded appellee landlord possession of leased premises on the ground that appellant tenant had violated a covenant of the lease which prohibited use of the premises “for any other purpose than laundry service.”

It was conceded that the tenant, after conducting a laundry service business on the premises for some length of time, added to the business a “dry cleaning” service. The sole question is whether the permitted laundry service included dry cleaning service.

In answering this question we do not deem it necessary to resort either to the dictionaries or to the reported cases. Instead, following the tenant’s suggestion, we ascribe to the words in question their ordinary and popularly accepted meaning. In ordinary and popular usage there is a vast and distinct difference between laundry service and dry cleaning service, both in the methods used and the results accomplished. The tenant himself recognized this difference because when he added the dry cleaning service he changed the name of his business from “Normandy Laundry” to “Astro Laundry and Cleaners.”

Affirmed.

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HOOD, Chief Judge.

The trial court awarded appellee landlord possession of leased premises on the ground that appellant tenant had violated a covenant of the lease which prohibited use of the premises “for any other purpose than laundry service.”

It was conceded that the tenant, after conducting a laundry service business on the premises for some length of time, added to the business a “dry cleaning” service. The sole question is whether the permitted laundry service included dry cleaning service.

In answering this question we do not deem it necessary to resort either to the dictionaries or to the reported cases. Instead, following the tenant’s suggestion, we ascribe to the words in question their ordinary and popularly accepted meaning. In ordinary and popular usage there is a vast and distinct difference between laundry service and dry cleaning service, both in the methods used and the results accomplished. The tenant himself recognized this difference because when he added the dry cleaning service he changed the name of his business from “Normandy Laundry” to “Astro Laundry and Cleaners.”

Affirmed.

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Bluebook (online)

189 A.2d 130, 1963 D.C. App. LEXIS 330, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anderson-v-busada-dc-1963.

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