E. C. Turner v. . G. A. Lowe

66 N.C. 413

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: January 5, 1872
• Status: Published

Opinion

RodmaN, J.

The rule that a tenant cannot dispute his landlord’s title, has not been impaired by any recent legislation ór by any recent decision oí this Court. It holds good now where-■ever it formerly did.

But a tenant might always show an equitable title in himself against the legal title of his landlord, or any facts which made it inequitable in the landlord to use his legal estate to turn him out of possession.

When law and equity were administered by distinct tribunals, the tenant was obliged to go into a Court of Equity for that purpose. But now that they are administered by the same Court, and without any distinction of form the tenant can set up in his answer any equitable defence he 'may have to his landlord’s claim. Calloway v. Hamby, 65 N. C. R. 631, is a case in which that was successfelly done, and the defendants were, held entitled to a specific performance of the plaintiff's covenant to convey the land. If such a defence cannot be set up in a Superior Court, it cannot anywhere, for we have no separate’Court of Equity.

We have not been at liberty to consider the particular equity set up in this case. The Judge refused to hear it on the ground that no equity would avail as a defence. In this he he erred.

Judgment reversed and the case remanded.

Pas CüRIAM.