Perkins v. Blackledge

285 So. 2d 761
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 3, 1973
Docket47295
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 285 So. 2d 761 (Perkins v. Blackledge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Perkins v. Blackledge, 285 So. 2d 761 (Mich. 1973).

Opinion

285 So.2d 761 (1973)

Dr. David L. PERKINS
v.
H.W. BLACKLEDGE and Jean Blackledge.

No. 47295.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

December 3, 1973.

Bacon & Smith, Jackson, for appellant.

Barnett, Montgomery, McClintock & Cunningham; James R. Ford, Jackson, for appellees.

ROBERTSON, Justice:

Appellant, Dr. David L. Perkins, sued Appellees, H.W. Blackledge and wife, Jean Blackledge, in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, for $6,000, the rental for two years under a five-year written lease contract; and also the cost of restoring the leased space to its former condition. Plaintiff charged that the Defendants moved out without notice to him, and thus, wrongfully terminated the written lease contract.

After a full trial, the jury returned a verdict for the Defendants Blackledge. Perkins appeals.

*762 On September 10, 1969, Perkins entered into a written lease with the Blackledges for space in an office building and small shopping center owned by him, which space would be used for a ladies beauty parlor. The lease was for a five-year term, beginning September 15, 1969, and the annual rental was $3,000 payable in advance. The Blackledges paid the first year's rental, which covered the period from September 15, 1969, to September 15, 1970.

Almost immediately after opening up, according to the testimony of the Blackledges and their witnesses, vulgar and obscene language could be heard through the partition wall between the beauty shop and the office of Dr. Perkins next door thereto. The Blackledges testified that they complained to Dr. Perkins, that he promised to remedy the situation, but that the rough language of Dr. Perkins and his friends continued to come through the wall and to be heard by the Blackledges and their customers.

Testimony offered by the Blackledges was that Perkins operated a package liquor store on the south side of the beauty salon and that drinking went on in Dr. Perkins' office on the north side of the beauty salon, and that friends or patients of Dr. Perkins would from time to time mistakenly enter the beauty salon, thinking that they were returning to Dr. Perkins' office.

The Blackledges and some of their customers testified that a physical altercation took place on the parking lot in front of the beauty shop between a friend of Dr. Perkins and another person, and that customers of the beauty salon feared for their safety.

The Blackledges also testified that the only restroom provided for their beauty parlor was used from time to time by Dr. Perkins and his friends, and that on some occasions his friends passed through a part of the beauty shop in tee shirts, and used boisterous and vulgar language on their way to the restroom.

In early December, 1969, the Blackledges finally blocked the entrance from Dr. Perkins' office with a counter or table on their side of the partition. Perkins came into the beauty salon complaining of this closing of the passageway, and Mr. Blackledge testified that Perkins told him on that occasion: "You can get you another place to go and I'll release you of your lease, because I want my bathroom." Blackledge also testified: "This was the only occasion that Dr. Perkins said he wanted his building and he would release us of our lease."

On March 9, 1970, the Blackledges purchased a vacant lot on West Capitol Street and began construction of a new beauty salon. Blackledge testified that after buying the vacant lot he had a conversation with Dr. Perkins and that:

"Dr. Perkins said that he had somebody that wanted to lease the building, to rent the building. That if we would notify him about the time we were going to be ready to move out. About a month — we moved June the 13th of 1970. About a month before we moved, I told Mr. Perkins that we'd try to move by the 15th of June or the first of August — of July. Dr. Perkins said then that he had somebody that wanted to lease or rent the building; that from the time that we moved up until September the 15th that he would give me part of the money that we had already prepaid; that that would help him and that would help me, too."

Blackledge testified that they moved the beauty shop to the new location on West Capitol Street on June 13, 1970, that Dr. Perkins witnessed the moving and wished them luck in their new location, and that he handed the keys to the leased premises to Dr. Perkins.

The testimony of Dr. Perkins and his witnesses was in direct conflict with that of the Blackledges and their witnesses. Perkins testified that there was no loud, boisterous, obscene or vulgar language in his office next to the beauty shop; that he did not tell the Blackledges that they could *763 find another building and move out; that he did not tell Mr. Blackledge that he had another tenant for the space leased to them; that he was well satisfied with his lease to them; that he did not object to their moving out on June 13, 1970, because he did not know what their plans were and that they had prepaid the rent to September 15, 1970, and he would have no right to object. Perkins testified that Blackledge did not give him the keys to the leased space, and that he, Perkins, had to have a new set of keys made. Although he had tried very hard, he had not been able to rent the space vacated by the Blackledges.

Perkins complains that the trial court erred in granting Defendants' Instruction No. 4 and in refusing to grant Plaintiff's Instruction No. 9. Plaintiff's Instruction No. 9 was, as follows:

"The Court instructs the jury for the plaintiff, Dr. David L. Perkins, that any attempt or notice by the defendants to change or terminate the lease sued on herein, would have to be in writing and signed by the parties to be charged; otherwise, such oral cancellation of the lease would be void and would violate Section 264 of the Mississippi Code of 1942, being known as the Mississippi Statute of Frauds, and if you believe from a preponderance of the evidence that the lease between Dr. Perkins and the Blackledges was not terminated by a writing signed by Dr. Perkins, then it is your sworn duty to find for the plaintiff."

We think that the trial court was correct in refusing to grant Plaintiff's Instruction No. 9. Section 264 does not require a cancellation to be in writing, and we are unwilling to so hold. We did hold in Nason v. Morrissey et al., 218 Miss. 601, 67 So.2d 506 (1953), and we think correctly so, that:

"[A] contract required by the statute of frauds to be in writing cannot be validly changed or modified as to any material condition therein by subsequent parol agreement so as to render the original written contract as modified an enforceable obligation." 218 Miss. at 610, 67 So.2d at 509.

In the case at bar, the defendants asserted by way of defense only that the plaintiff had agreed to release them from their written lease in consideration of their agreement to let him retain 3 1/2 months unearned rent. They also contended, by way of defense, that the plaintiff first breached the contract by constructively evicting them. The facts are greatly different from Nason where the attempt was to orally change or modify a written contract and then to specifically enforce the original written contract as orally modified.

We do think that the court erred in granting Defendants' Instruction No. 4, which provided:

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Bluebook (online)
285 So. 2d 761, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/perkins-v-blackledge-miss-1973.