H. G. Hill Co. v. Taylor

174 So. 481, 234 Ala. 282, 1937 Ala. LEXIS 206
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedMarch 25, 1937
Docket8 Div. 776.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 174 So. 481 (H. G. Hill Co. v. Taylor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
H. G. Hill Co. v. Taylor, 174 So. 481, 234 Ala. 282, 1937 Ala. LEXIS 206 (Ala. 1937).

Opinion

THOMAS, Justice.

The. case was tried upon an agreed statement of facts.

The error assigned by appellant is that “the lower court erred in rendering judgment for the plaintiff.”

The cross-assignments of error by appelle'e are that “the trial court erred in rendering judgment for the appellee for less sum than that claimed in the amended complaint,” and “in not including in the judgment awarded appellee against appellant the sum of $100.00 claimed * * * as attorneys’ fees.”

The trial was had on amended count 2, and defendant pleaded in short by consent the general issue, with the usual leave to give in evidence any matter which would be good in bar if specially pleaded.

The plaintiff’s judgment was for $1,320, as damages, together with the costs in that behalf expended.

The amended count claimed damages “under the provisions of Code of Alabama, section 8014,” for that plaintiff leased to defendant the real property described under a “written lease contract for the term of one year,” to begin as indicated, with the privilege of renewals; that defendant entered into possession of said premises, “exercised its privilege to renew” and agreed to pay rent to plaintiff, and did pay plaintiff as rent “during the last three years for the last renewal period the sum of $660.00 per annum.” It is then averred “that after the expiration of said lease on July 31, 1935, and to-wit: the 27th day of August, 1935, she (plaintiff) commenced an action of unlawful detainer against defendant for recovery of said premises in the Inferior Court of Huntsville, and that on the 20th day of November, 1935, the defendant having taken an appeal to this court from the judgment of said Inferior Court, in favor of plaintiff, the plaintiff recovered a judgment against defendant in this court for possession of said premises in said action of unlawful detainer; and plaintiff avers that said judgment stands unreversed as the judgment of this court.”

The amount of damages claimed is “double the amount of the annual rent agreed to be paid under said lease contract for the last renewal period of said lease,” and for attorneys’ fees, “claimed as special damages in accordance with the provisions of said statute.”

The trial court allowed double damages, but disallowed attorneys’ fees. Under the agreed statement of facts, it was shown that plaintiff incurred the reasonable expense for attorneys’ fees indicated in the unlawful detainer suit. To this a'ction of the trial court appellee cross-assigned errors.

The record shows that on July 23, 1925, Mrs. Taylor, appellee, rented the real property to H. G. Hill Company, appellant, and that by an instrument in writing between *284 the parties, the term of the lease was duly extended to July 31, 1935, the rent for the contract and for the year ending July 31, 1935, being $660. It is further shown that on August 27, 1935, “appellee instituted an unlawful detainer suit against the appellant in the Inferior Court of Huntsville for the possession of the leased premises. On September 7, 1935, appellee recovered judgment for possession of the property, and from this judgment appellant appealed to the Cir-' cuit Court”; that “after the appeal to the Circuit Court, and while the cause was pending in that Court, appellee amended her complaint by claiming one hundred dollars damages for the detention of the property for the period between the expiration of the lease and the bringing of the unlawful detainer suit. And on the trial, appellee recovered judgment for the possession of the property and sixty-five dollars damages for its detention. Appellant appealed from this judgment to the Supreme Court of Alabama, and the judgment of the Circuit Court was affirmed — H. G. Hill Co. v. Taylor, 232 Ala. 471, 168 So. 693 — and the judgment was paid by appellant”; that “judgment was also rendered by the Circuit Court for $182.50, for damages for the detention of the property during the pendency of the appeal in the Circuit Court, which was at the rate of $75.00 per month, and this amount was also paid by appellee after the affirmance of the case by the Supreme Cotirt. Appellant also paid appellee the sum of $475.00, same being damages for the detention of the property from November 20th, 1935 (date of the judgment of the Circuit Court in the unlawful detainer suit), to June 1, 1936, the date appellant delivered possession of the leased premises;” that this case “was tried by the court without a jury and judgment rendered against defendant, appellant here, for $1320.00, this being double the amount of the annual rent agreed to be paid under the lease contract, and this appeal is prosecuted from this judgment.”

On first appeal this court, in considering the effect of that lease, said that it was for a. fixed term and required no notice to enable the landlord to prosecute an action pf unlawful detainer against the tenant; the “only notice required being statutory written demand for possession of leased property” under section 8001 of the Code. H. G. Hill Co. v. Taylor, 232 Ala. 471, 168 So. 693; Vizard Invest. Co. v. Mobile Fish & Oyster Co., 197 Ala. 625, 73 So. 328.

Adverting generally to the statute and its terms (section 8014, Code), a penalty is provided for retaining possession of rented premises, by a tenant, after the expiration of the term of his lease, or for unlawful refusal to surrender the possession on the written demand of the lessor. That is to say, the statute specifically provides for accruing liability and damages recoverable (1) for the forcible or unlawful retention of possession of lands by the lessee after the expiration of his term; (2) for the refusal to surrender the same on written demand of the lessor; (3) for special damages “sustained by the party thus unlawfully kept out of pos-, session”; and (4) “as now provided by law in actions of unlawful detainer, or by an action at law for damages,” subject to the “ten days’ demand in writing” by the landlord or his agent after the termination of the tenant’s possessory interest, as provided by Code, § 8001. Vizard Inv. Co. v. Mobile Fish & Oyster Co., 197 Ala. 625, 627, 73 So. 328; Fisk Tire Co. v. Hunter et al., 221 Ala. 576, 130 So. 85; Speer v. Lancaster-Johnson Lumber Co., 214 Ala. 688, 108 So. 746; Brown v. Baker, 220 Ala. 45, 124 So. 87.

The effect of our decisions is that the statute provides that separate actions may be brought for the possession and for the penalty, and that if the amount of damages claimed — compensatory or penal — -exceeds the jurisdiction of the justice court, such damages must be claimed in separate actions at law. In Fisk Tire Co. v. Hunter et al., supra, the action for double damages was in the circuit. court; such likewise was the fact in Ullman & Co. v. Flerzberg, 91 Ala. 458, 8 So. 408. In the last-cited case Judge Stone observed:

“Another ground of demurrer claims that, inasmuch as the complaint shows that a former suit — the unlawful detainer— was prosecuted by the present plaintiff against the present defendants, the penalty sued for in this action ought to have been claimed in that suit, and cannot be the ground of a separate, second action. There are two answers to this: First, the statute confers the right to sue separately in an action at law; second, the amount sued for in this case is in excess of a justice’s jurisdiction, and cannot be’’ recovered in an action of unlawful detainer. Const. Ala. art. 6, § 26, and note. * * *

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
174 So. 481, 234 Ala. 282, 1937 Ala. LEXIS 206, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/h-g-hill-co-v-taylor-ala-1937.