Forbes v. Housing Authority of New Haven

11 Conn. Supp. 465, 1943 Conn. Super. LEXIS 17
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas
DecidedJanuary 14, 1943
DocketFile No. 33931
StatusPublished

This text of 11 Conn. Supp. 465 (Forbes v. Housing Authority of New Haven) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Forbes v. Housing Authority of New Haven, 11 Conn. Supp. 465, 1943 Conn. Super. LEXIS 17 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1943).

Opinion

Memorandum of decision de defendants’ motion to dissolve temporary injunction.

FITZGERALD, J.

On January 5, 1943, plaintiff applied to the undersigned for the issuance of a temporary injunction having for its objective the enjoining of the defendants from “prosecuting or continuing any summary process action intending to dispossess (plaintiff) and/or any members (of his. [466]*466family) from the premises described” in the complaint. The temporary injunction was granted ex parte as on file.

“A temporary injunction is a preliminary order. .. .granted at the outset or during the pendency of an action, forbidding the performance of the threatened acts described in the original complaint until the rights of the parties respecting them shall have been finally determined by the court.” Deming vs. Bradstreet, 85 Conn. 650, 659.

On January 6, 1943, defendants moved the undersigned to dissolve the temporary injunction so issued on the grounds that “the material facts relating thereto” had not been fully disclosed and that the defendants were being unjustly denied “the summary procedure for eviction provided by the statutes of this State.”

Hearing on the defendants’ motion came before me on January 8, 1943.

A preliminary observation is deemed appropriate at this point. It is, of course, the better policy to withhold the issuance of a temporary injunction until notice has been given to the opposition and a hearing assigned for consideration of the merits. Circumstances, however, alter many things. If a situation in the nature of an emergency is deemed to be present, a preliminary injunction may issue ex parte upon affidavit of the applicant, and without bond. The temporary injunction in this action was issued at 10:4'5 on the morning of January 5, 1943, on the representation of plaintiff’s counsel that at 11:00 a.m. on said morning the summary process action, in which the defendant Housing Authority is plaintiff and the plaintiff herein is defendant, was to come before a local justice of the peace for trial and judgment. A situation in the nature of an emergency was deemed by me to exist and the temporary injunction was allowed to issue forthwith.

The defendants’ motion to dissolve necessarily brings before me in fuff form the claims of the respective parties. In a word, I am now able to distinguish between substance and .shadow.

By agreement of counsel the question to be determined at this time is whether or not the defendant Housing Authority ihas the legal right to set rent de the four room unit in question, occupied by plaintiff and his family since June 12, 1941, :at a higher rate than that provided for in a written lease of [467]*467a month-to-month' character executed between the parties on said date.

The monthly rent fixed in the lease of June 12, 1941 (in reality a month-to-month lease containing a cancellation clause) was $17.50 per month. The monthly rent subsequently determined by the defendant Housing Authority as “the rent generally prevailing in the defense-rental area (which includes the City of New Haven) for comparable housing accommodations on April 1, 1941” was $43 per month. The dwelling unit in question is composed of four rooms and located in the Elm Haven housing accommodation owned and conducted by the defendant Housing Authority.

PlaintifF argues that the rent fixed between the parties on June 12, 1941 (new building not previously occupied), represents the maximum rent that the defendant Housing Authority is legally entitled to ask and receive under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 adopted by the United States Congress and approved by the President on January 30, 1942. (See Public Law 421, 77th Congress, 2d Session, chapter 26, 56 Stat. 23, 50 U.S.C.A., Appendix, §901, et seq.) More particularly, plaintiff’s argument is predicated upon the portion of section 4(c) of Maximum Rent Regulation No. 26 For Housing Accommodations Other Than Hotels and Rooming Houses, which reads: “Maximum rents (unless and until changed by the Administrator as provided in Section 5) shall be:.... (c) For housing accommodations not rented on April 1, 1941 nor during the two months ending on that date, but rented prior to the effective date of this Maximum Rent Regulation (July 1, 1942), the first rent for such accommodation after April 1, 1941

Defendants, on the other hand, argue that the applicable section of the aforesaid regulation is section 4 (g) thereof, which reads: “Maximum rents (unless and until changed by the Administrator as provided in Section 5) shall be. . . .(g) For housing accommodations constructed by the United States or any agency thereof, or by a State of the United States or any of its political subdivisions, or any agency of the State or any of its political subdivisions, and owned by any of the foregoing, the rent generally prevailing in the Defense-Rental Area for comparable housing accommodations on April 1, 1941, as determined by the owner of such accommodations (italics mine); Provided, however, that any corporation formed [468]*468under the laws of a State shall not be considered an agency of the United States within the meaning of this paragraph

The answer to the question propounded depends upon whether the defendant Housing Authority is to be considered as that species of corporations referred to in that portion of section 4(g) preceding the words “Provided, however,” or that species following the two words quoted from the text thereof. That there is a line of demarcation intended by the drafters of Regulation No. 26 cannot be doubted.

Chapter 33c of the 1939 Cumulative Supplement to the General Statutes of Connecticut is concerned with the statu' tory law pertaining to the various housing authorities in Connecticut. Section 180e thereof, among other things, provides that “in each municipality of the state there is created a public body corporate and politic to be known as the ‘housing authority’.” Subsection (c) of section 189e provides, among other things, that “bonds may be additionally secured by a pledge of any grant or contributions from the federal govern' merit or other source (italics mine); and section 192e, entitled “Aid From Federal Government”, specifically confers upon a Connecticut housing authority attributes dissimilar to those of other corporations. By way of illustration, the last sentence of section 192e reads: “It is the purpose and intent of this chapter to authorise every authority to do any and all things necessary or desirable to secure the financial aid or cooperation of the federal government in the undertaking, construction, maintenance or operation of any housing project by such authority.”

In a word, the sections referred to, if not others, clearly place the defendant Housing Authority in that species of corporations falling within the orbit of the first part of section 4(g) of Regulation No. 26 preceding the words “Provided, however.” It is obvious that the latter part of section 4(g) has reference to the more usual species of corporations existing under, and by virtue of, the general corporate laws of the respective states of the union.

I am bound to take, and do take, judicial notice of the social scheme of things, in a national sense, which has prompted the enactment of the legislation in question.

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Related

Deming v. Bradstreet
84 A. 116 (Supreme Court of Connecticut, 1912)

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Bluebook (online)
11 Conn. Supp. 465, 1943 Conn. Super. LEXIS 17, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/forbes-v-housing-authority-of-new-haven-pactcompl-1943.