Hat Box, Inc. v. Plankinton Building Co.

280 N.W. 419, 228 Wis. 342, 1938 Wisc. LEXIS 193
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedJune 21, 1938
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 280 N.W. 419 (Hat Box, Inc. v. Plankinton Building Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hat Box, Inc. v. Plankinton Building Co., 280 N.W. 419, 228 Wis. 342, 1938 Wisc. LEXIS 193 (Wis. 1938).

Opinion

Fowler, J.

The plaintiff held a lease of a store in a building in Milwaukee known as the “Plankinton Arcade,” and was conducting a retail business therein selling hats. Its lease had four years yet to run. The building is fully described in the preface to the opinion in Gitlitz v. Plankinton Building Properties, Inc., ante, p. 334, 280 N. W. 415, to which reference is here made for such facts as are necessary to an understanding of our decision herein. The store of the plaintiff was included in the premises west of the arcade described in said preface which were leased to the Grant Company. For the Grant Company to get possession of the premises and commence the remodeling required, the plaintiff had to remove elsewhere. After negotiations between the de[344]*344fendant and the plaintiff an agreement was reached whereby for $3,500 paid to the plaintiff the plaintiff was h> remove from Store 32 that it was occupying to Store 18 on the arcade east of the rotunda. After removal pursuant to the agreement the plaintiff brought this action in which it alleged that the agreement and the plaintiff’s removal pursuant thereto were induced by a false and fraudulent representation made by the defendant to- the plaintiff’s damage in the sum of $10,000, and demanded recovery of that sum. The defendant by answer denied making the representation alleged, and denied that the plaintiff sustained any loss through the carrying.out of the agreement. Trial was had to the court without a jury. The court found that the defendant did not make the representation alleged; that such statements as it did make were true; and that the plaintiff sustained no loss through carrying out the agreement.

The representation claimed is, in substance, that the defendant would maintain an arcade twelve feet wide, bounded by glass partitions, through from Second street east to the rotunda. The representation, if made, was a promise to be performed in the future. Such a promise does not ordinarily constitute a cause of action. But it is alleged that the promise was made with intention by the promisor not to- perform it and without ability to perform it, and it is claimed by the plaintiff, and we assume correctly, that this makes the promise a false representation.

The plaintiff assigns as error that the court’s findings are not sustained by the evidence. Its counsel concedes that the finding as to the representation would stand if it stood on oral testimony alone, but insists that the documentary evidence shows conclusively that the representation was made and made knowing that the promise could not and intending that it would not be performed. Reliance in this respect is particularly based upon the claim that the written agreement for giving up Store 32 and accepting Store 18 so shows be[345]*345cause the agreement is in the form of a lease made by attaching to the lease of Store 32 a written stipulation that the lease of Store 32 should “remain in full force and effect” as to Store 18 except as to amount of rental, and that the lessee might cancel the lease on sixty days’ notice, which provision was not in the lease of Store 32.

The contention of plaintiff in this respect is that the original lease of Store 32 gave the lessee the right to- have a thirty-two-foot east-and-west arcade maintained for the term of the lease, and that as that- lease continued in force as to Store 18 it continued the right to maintenance of the arcade. If so it continued the right to maintenance of a thirty-two-foot arcade. But this is contrary to the allegation of the complaint that a twelve-foot arcade with glass partitions would be maintained from Second street east to- the rotunda. The plaintiff can hardly be heard to dispute the basis of its claim to damages. Manifestly, notwithstanding the statement of the attached agreement, according to the appellant’s own claim both in its complaint and its testimony, it was not intended that right to maintenance of a thirty-two-foot arcade should remain in force, and thus it was not intended that all rights of plaintiff under the original lease respecting the arcade should be retained as appurtenant to Store 18. Moreover if the lease of Store 32 was to apply to Store 18, this has no bearing upon plaintiff’s right to- maintenance of the twelve-foot passageway. There was no covenant o-r provision whatever in the lease of Store 32 relating or referring to the arcade. The plaintiff did not procure its right to maintenance of the arcade under the terms of its lease of Store 32. Whatever rights it had to the use of the arcade it acquired under the general rule of law that means of ingress and egress to leased premises existing at the execution of a lease may not be interfered with by the lessor or any one else during the term of the lease. See Gitlitz v. Plankinton Building Properties, Inc., supra. Such rights to use of the arcade [346]*346as plaintiff had rested upon the situation existing, not upon the terms of the lease.

Another document that the plaintiff claims shows that the false representation claimed was made by the defendant is the lease from defendant to the Grant Company dated June 18, 1936. This lease contained a provision whereby the Grant Company stipulated to maintain a passageway twelve feet wide through the portion of its store previously occupied by the arcade, but only SO' long as the defendant maintained the arcade west of the Grant Company’s store. The work of remodeling commenced after August 10th. The complaint alleges that the promise to maintain the twelve-foot passageway through the Grant store was made August 1st, the day the agreement was executed. The documents referred to may tend in some degree to- corroborate the plaintiff’s claim of a promise by the defendant to> maintain a passageway through the Grant store, but they are not conclusive. All of the agents who represented the defendant in the negotiations preceding the execution of the agreement of August 1st, deny that such a promise was made. The negotiations to procure the plaintiff to move from Store 32 to' Store 18 began prior to June 15th, as a letter from plaintiff in the record shows. There was doubtless talk between the parties relative to the twelve;-foot passageway. The only testimony implying that a promise to maintain such passageway was made on the date the written agreement respecting removal was made, was that of Mrs. Lesch, one of the officers of the plaintiff company, who testified that Mr. Harvey said on that day that there was to be a twelve-foot passageway with glass doors through the Grant store. Mr. Harvey denies so saying. Mr. Harvey, the managing officer of the defendant, testified that “hope” to maintain such passageway continued until about Easter, 1937, when a lease of premises west of the Grant store was executed which included a part of the arcade. The tenant refused to take a lease if such passageway through his [347]*347store was to be maintained, and it was not until then that the defendant determined to close the arcade west of the rotunda. We consider that.upon the whole record the trial judge was justified in finding both that the promise claimed was not made and that such representation relating to^ the passageway as was made was not false or made with intent not tO' perform it.

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Bluebook (online)
280 N.W. 419, 228 Wis. 342, 1938 Wisc. LEXIS 193, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hat-box-inc-v-plankinton-building-co-wis-1938.