Hopper v. Chamberlain

34 N.J.L. 220
CourtSupreme Court of New Jersey
DecidedJune 15, 1870
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 34 N.J.L. 220 (Hopper v. Chamberlain) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hopper v. Chamberlain, 34 N.J.L. 220 (N.J. 1870).

Opinion

Scudder, J.

In an action of trespass guare clausum fregit, for breaking and entering a certain mill in the city of Paterson, Ac., the defendants, Albert A. Hopper, George Broom-head, and Joseph Broomhead, justify, as agents of Maria Yan Ilouten and Henry O. McCarty, the land-owners, by whose authority they entered upon the premises, after the expiration of the term of his tenancy, and removed the plaintiff, his servante and property therefrom, peaceably and gently, using no more force than was necessary.

In the fifth and sixth pleas, this defence is set up, with some variations as to the parties and the property, not now material in the consideration of this cause.

To these pleas the same replication, substantially, is put in: that the defendants are estopped from pleading so much thereof wherein they allege that before the 26th day of May, 1866, and before the 1st of May in the year aforesaid, the tenancy of the said plaintiff in and to the said close in that count mentioned, under the said Maria Yan Houten and Henry O. McCarty, expired, and the said plaintiff there[222]*222after, to wit, from the 1st day of May, in the year last aforesaid, to the 26th day of May, in the year aforesaid, wrongfully and unlawfully held over and continued in the use and occupation of the close in that count mentioned; because, upon notice to deliver possession of the premises given by the defendants to the plaintiff/ and refusal by the plaintiff, affidavit was made and proceedings had in the court for the trial of small causes, held before Bernard O’Neil, Esq., a justice of the peace in and for the county of Passaic, for the removal of the plaintiff pursuant to the statute entitled A supplement to an act entitled An act concerning landlords and tenants,”’ approved March 4th, 1847; and upon trial before said justice and a jury, on June 19th, 1866, a veiílict, was rendered and judgment entered by said justice in favor of the plaintiff, the tenant below.

The defendants demur generally, and assign special causes for the demurrer.

These causes, sixteen in number, may be grouped and included under two general heads:

1. That the statement in the replication of the proceedings before the justice does not show that he had jurisdiction; and that the very point in controversy in this suit was therein decided.

2. That the determination in these summary proceedings, even if they be regular and strictly within the statutory requirements, cannot be pleaded in this action as an estoppel by a record.

. The proceedings under the supplement to the act concerning landlords and tenants, approved March 4th, 1847, and the further supplements thereto, provide a prompt remedy for the great mischief and damage that may ensue from holding over after a term ended ; and from the non-payment of rent, where there is no sufficient distress on the premises, while the landlord is pursuing his recovery by ejectment.

This supplement extends the remedies given to owners of lands under the statutes concerning forcible entries and detainers, and the earlier acts concerning landlords and ten[223]*223ants, neither of which afforded any redress in the special casos provided for in this supplement. It is remedial, special, and summary in its proceedings, and is intended to settle nothing but the right to the immediate possession of lands held by a tenant or lessee at will, at sufferance, or for years, between such tenant or lessee and his landlord. All the means of prosecuting the action by notice, affidavit, summons, hearing before a magistrate, and jury, when required, the determination and writ of possession, are the most expeditious known to our law.

As the act originally stood, it was assumed at the hearing that the tenant was a trespasser, and the burthen was put upon him to show cause why possession of the premises -should not be delivered to the claimant. A jury was given, if demanded, to complete the jurisdiction, and to prevent too hasty or too partial action in the important result of dispossessing a tenant of lands, but not thereby giving any additional legal effect to the decision.

No appeal was allowed, but, on the contrary, it was expressly said that “ the proceedings had by virtue of this act shall not be appealed from or removed by certiorari.”

It is manifest that it could. no,t have been the intention to settle finally, in this hasty manner, such questions concerning the rights of parties to real’ property, as must often arise in these eases between landlords and tenants. It is only one of those extraordinary preventive remedies given occasionally in eases that admit of no delay, anticipating thereby the slower processes of more complete forms of action, and auxiliary to them.

If the landlord fail, he still has his legal remedies to recover possession : and if he succeed, the tenant has also left to him his action for damages, and the right to regain the possession, if the term has not expired, upon disproving the facts upon which his removal is based.

This is the conclusion to which this court arrived in McWilliams v. King and Phillips, 3 Vroom 21, wherein it is said “that the decision before the justice, so far as it touches the [224]*224rights of landlord and tenant, is a decision pro hac vice, and nothing more. Either of them can, in any subsequent legal investigation, deny or disprove the facts upon which such decision is based.” See, also, Taylor’s Ld. & Ten., § 713, &c.; Arch. Ld. & Ten., §§ 226, 230.

Such a decision can hardly be said to partake of the technical qualities of a completed record of a judgment in a court of law. Neither party can claim, by the principles of strict law, that the other is concluded by the result, and plead it as an estoppel to further investigation of the right of possession.

But, supposing it might be pleaded in estoppel, this is-matter of strict law, without favor in courts, and, to be-available, must be certain to every intent; and if it be-pleaded as a judgment, then it is merely evidence when it is directly upon the point in question. 4 Com. Dig., Estoppel, (E. 4;) Blackham’s case,1Salk. 290; Duchess of Kingston’s case, and notes; 2 Smith’s Lead. Cases (6th Am. ed.) 787; Ward v. Ward, 2 Zab. 699.

This brings me to consider, briefly, the special qualities of some of the statements in the replication, within the causes assigned for the demurrer.

The very point in question, in this case, is the right of possession in the land upon which it is alleged the trespass was committed. The plaintiff must, therefore, plead in estoppel, that this point was decided in his favor before the justice, and that the defendants are thereby concluded. But in his replication to these fifth and sixth pleas, he does not state that this was settled by the verdict of the jury, or by the judgment of the magistrate. The statement is, that the jury upon the trial of the said action, upon their oath said that the said Maria Van Houten and Henry O. McCarty, as to the said complaint in the said oath in writing contained, had no cause for action; that such proceedings were thereupon further had, that the said plaintiff, William H. Chamberlain, Jr., then and there recovered a judgment, &c., against [225]*225the said Maria Van Iiouten and Henry O.

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Bluebook (online)
34 N.J.L. 220, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hopper-v-chamberlain-nj-1870.