Hoover v. Yannunzi

2 Pa. D. & C. 598, 1922 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 361
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Berks County
DecidedMarch 13, 1922
DocketNo. 1305
StatusPublished

This text of 2 Pa. D. & C. 598 (Hoover v. Yannunzi) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Berks County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hoover v. Yannunzi, 2 Pa. D. & C. 598, 1922 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 361 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1922).

Opinion

Wagner, J.,

Findings of fact.

1. Edith M. Hoover, plaintiff, is the lessee and occupant of the second floor front room of building situate at No. 906 Penn Street, Reading, Pa. This [599]*599room, together with a small toilet-room, cut out of the northeast part of the large room aforesaid, occupies the entire front of said building on the second floor, and was rented by the plaintiff to be used as a studio of music only.

2. Plaintiff, by agreement in writing bearing date May 28, 1921, rented said premises from Ralph S. Focht, owner of said building and one of the defendants.

3. On April 1, 1921, Ralph S. Focht, by an agreement in writing, leased to Joseph Yannunzi, one of the other defendants, inter alia, a store-room on the first floor of premises No. 906 Penn Street, to be used as a shoe repairing and boot-blacking business.

4. The aforesaid leases reserved this right to the .lessor with regard to signs: The said party of the first part (Ralph S. Focht) expressly reserves the right to display “For Rent” or “For Sale” cards thereon.

5. On April 1, 1921, until July 6, 1921, Joseph Yannunzi and Sebastiano Adesso conducted said shoe repairing and boot-blacking business as partners.

6. On July 9,1921, Joseph Yannunzi, lessee as aforesaid, and as sole owner of the Reading Liberty Shoe Repairing Company, without the consent of the plaintiff, erected a vertical electric display sign, 3 feet 9 inches in width at the base and 11 feet 6 inches in height, of the approximate weight of 300 pounds, symbolic of the Statue of Liberty, said electric sign being wired for and containing forty-four 26-watt lamps on the inside of the sign and ten 10-watt lamps on the outside of the sign, the light from which illuminates 200 small lights and five larger ones, not including the illumination of the letters of the sign, “Reading Liberty Shoe Repairing.” The sign is illuminated in the evening until 10.30 o’clock.

7. Permission was given by the owner of the building, Ralph S. Focht, to Joseph Yannunzi to erect an electric sign at the place where the same is erected.

8. The plaintiff, prior to the erection of this sign, had no knowledge that said sign was to be erected, and on the morning that it was erected, as soon as she obtained knowledge that it was being erected, through her agent, Early Wyckoff, protested against its erection.

Discussion.

Plaintiff contends that when she leased the front room of the second floor of No. 906 Penn Street, to be used as a studio of music, this gave her exclusive possession of the outside wall of the room rented, except as the lessor reserved the right to display thereon “For Rent” or “For Sale” cards.

This contention is denied by the defendants. They maintain that because this is a lease of a room only, it gave to the plaintiff no right to the outside wall; that the same remained in the owner of the building, Mr. Focht, and that, he having given permission to Joseph Yannunzi to erect an electric sign upon aforesaid wall, plaintiff’s prayer for an injunction should be dismissed.

In 24 Cyc., 1047, we have this principle as to the use of outside walls thus stated: “According to the weight of authority, the lease of a portion of a building for a store or other business purposes gives the lessee the exclusive right to the use of the outer walls of that portion of the building so leased by him for the purpose of posting advertisements and notices thereon.” In 1 Landlord and Tenant, Tiffany, 271, the respective rights of a lessee as to the outer wall adjacent to the rooms or apartments named as a part of the premises leased, and as to the landlord or other lessees of the building, is thus stated: “A lease of a part of a building, prima fade, passes the outer wall adjacent to the rooms or apartment named as a part of the premises [600]*600leased, and, consequently, the lessee has the exclusive right to use such wall for advertising purposes. But the landlord, or the lessee of other parts of the building, no doubt, retains an easement in such walls for the purpose of supporting the balance of the building, and any serious changes in, or injuries to, the wall would be restrained.” In Salinger v. North American Woolen Mills Co. et al. (W. Va.), 73 S. E. Repr. 312, where it is held) that the lessee of a store-room, unless restrained by the terms of his lease, has the exclusive right to the use of the outside walls of that portion of the building covered by his lease, for advertising signs, the court, on page 314, say: “It is well settled, also, that a lessee has the exclusive right to the use of the outside walls of the portion of the building covered by his lease, to the exclusion of a lessee of another part of the same building, and has no right to use, for any purpose, any portion of the outside walls not enclosing his part of the premises: 1 Underhill on Landlord and! Tenant, § 277. And this rule applies to the use of such walls for signs: Jones on Landlord and Tenant, § 108; 24 Cye., 1047; Riddle v. Littlefield, 53 N. H. 503, 16 Am. Reps. 388.” In Broads et al. v. Mead et al. (Cal.), 116 Pac. Repr. 46, where the same question arose as in this case, we have (page 47): “Plaintiff, Laura Broads, had leased the premises for the purpose of carrying on a restaurant therein. She had the right to make a reasonable use of the front wall for the purpose of advertising said business. This clearly implies the right to keep it free for such use and to prevent other persons from placing signs upon or against it which would obstruct or interfere with such use by her. Her right to prevent the defendants from occupying her wall space with signs relating to their own business seems indisputable. The injunction was properly given.” See, also, Baldwin v. Morgan, 43 Hun (N. Y.), 355.

This same question came before us in Yoder v. Cohen Bros., 6 Berks Co. L. J. 314. In that case the plaintiff had rented the entire second floor of the building. We there held that this gave him the right to the outer wall, and granted an injunction against the owners of the building and1 occupiers of the first floor, restraining them from placing an electric sign on the second floor of plaintiff’s leased portion of the building. The defendants contend that this case must be differentiated from that because there the plaintiff had the entire floor, while in this case the plaintiff has but the front room of the second floor. It must be remembered that plaintiff’s premises were rented for business purposes, and the part she rented) included the entire front of the second floor. In Lowell v. Strahan (Mass.), 12 N. E. Repr. 401, cited by us in Yoder v. Cohen Bros., we have, inter alia: “ ‘Floor’ means a section of the building between horizontal planes; the words ‘in a building’ show that the section is of the whole building and not of a part of it. The word ‘room' includes a description of the perpendicular as well as of the horizontal planes which bound the parcel of the house described by it, and excludes the outside of lateral walls, at least when they constitute the walls of another room, as clearly as the words ‘first floor’ exclude the flooring of the story above it.” Both in the case of Lowell v. Strahan and Yoder v. Cohen Bros., plaintiffs had leased the entire floor. The decision in these two cases does not determine that a person who has leased a room of a second floor, as in this case, does not have a similar right.

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2 Pa. D. & C. 598, 1922 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 361, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hoover-v-yannunzi-pactcomplberks-1922.