“Yes; and a weekly tenancy beginning on Saturday ends on Saturday.[460] How would it be, Lawyer, if the landlord rented the rooms to some one else before the expiration of the week?”
“That would amount to a rescission of the bargain, and he could not sue the defaulting tenant for rent for the days the apartments were empty;[461] but lighting or warming the rooms, or putting up ‘to let’ in the window, will not prevent the owner looking to the man who has left without giving the proper notice.”[462]
“I suppose that one cannot leave without notice because he fears that the landlord’s things are likely to be seized by the landlord paramount,” said Jones.
“Of course you can make an express stipulation to that effect;[463] otherwise you cannot leave.”[464]
“Well,” said my wife, “I presume that at all events the landlord will have to rebuild if we are to continue paying rent.”
“By no means. The rule is, that a landlord, after an injury by fire, is under no obligation to rebuild or repair the house for the benefit of the tenant,”[465] was my melancholy reply.
Fortunately, breakfast does not last as long as dinner; so this conversation (which had grown irksome to myself, and has proved probably equally, if not more so, to my readers) was brought to a conclusion before very much more was said on this subject, and I gladly availed myself of the opportunity of going out on business.
Down town I met my old friend, Dr. Lane, who told me of the tiff he had just had with his landlord. Some months previously he had hired from one Johnson certain rooms in a fashionable locality, at a rental of a couple of hundred dollars a year, with the privilege of putting a brass plate bearing his name upon the front door. Shortly afterward Johnson leased the whole premises to Mr. Dixon for twenty-one years. In course of time, the health of the neighborhood being excellent, Lane got in arrear; so Dixon removed the brass plate, and refused to let the Doctor have access to his rooms—in fact, finding them open one day, and the lodger out, he fastened the outer door, and so excluded him altogether. Lane sued for damages, and the jury kindly gave him £10 for the breaking and entry into his room, expelling him therefrom and seizing his etceteras, and £20 for the removal of the brass plate. Dixon, rather naturally, was dissatisfied with the verdict of these twelve men and appealed to the court, who, however, agreed that the jury were perfectly correct in their view of the matter, and that the Doctor might keep his £30. The removal of the plate was considered a distinct and substantive trespass.[466] Of course the disciple of Galen was overjoyed, and insisted upon my taking a glass of something alcoholic while he told me of the little trip that he purposed taking at his landlord’s expense.
After parting from the worthy leech my brain was rather puzzled to draw a distinction between his case and one decided some time ago, where one Bloxham, a poulterer and a keeper of a beer-shop, claiming a sum of money to be due to him by a lodger—one Hartley by name—locked up his goods in the room in which Hartley had put them, pocketed the key, and refused the boarder access to them till his bill was paid—yet it was decided that what was done was not such a taking of goods as would sustain the action for trespass brought by poor Hartley.[467] At last it dawned upon me that in the case I was conning over there had been no actual taking—the landlord never actually touched the goods at all—he merely locked the door and kept the key, and therein it differed from Lane’s suit.[468]
In another case, a landlord, before his tenant’s time was up, and contrary to his wishes, entered his (the tenant’s) room and removed therefrom books, maps, and papers, placing them where they were damaged by the rain. The boarder, not liking such treatment, sued his landlord, and the court decided that the latter was a trespasser and liable for all damages sustained, whether they resulted from his direct and immediate acts, or remotely from the act of God.[469]