Keyes v. Moy Jin Mun

GRAY, C.

This is an appeal from a judgment in plaintiff’s favor in an action for unlawful detainer brought for failure to comply with a demand to pay rent or surrender the premises, which demand was made after said rent was due.

The complaint alleges facts showing that there was due plaintiff for rent two hundred dollars on April 1, 1899, and that no part thereof has ever been paid, and the court so found. The prayer of the complaint was for a forfeiture of the lease, restitution of the premises, “and the recovery of $600, being treble the rent now due as aforesaid.” In its conclusions of law the court found that judgment should be entered for plaintiff against defendant for the forfeiture and restitution prayed for, “and further awarding the sum of $400 for the rents of said premises due and accruing.” In the judgment the court awarded the plaintiff the relief prayed for as to the forfeiture of the lease and restitution of the premises, “together with the sum of $400 rents, damages with interest thereon at the rate of seven per cent,” etc.

The only points made by appellant are, that the conclusions of law are inconsistent with the allegations of the complaint and findings as above set forth, and that the findings do not support the judgment.

Section 3283 of the Civil Code provides that “damages may be awarded in a judicial proceeding, for detriment resulting after the commencement thereof, or certain to result in the future.” The ease of

Mason

v.

Wolff,

40 Cal. 246, holds that the court may in an unlawful detainer case give judgment for the amount of rent due at the time of the trial. The action was commenced on April 8, 1899, and it appears that a month’s rent of two hundred dollars was then due; the findings are dated June 1, 1899, which would admit of at least two hundred dollars more becoming due pending the action. "When the trial was had, or what the evidence was on the

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question of rents accruing, pending the action, does not appear; for the record does not contain the evidence or any statement as to the date of the trial. We will therefore, in the absence of these matters, presume that facts supporting the judgment were duly made to appear to the trial court. Indeed, the findings and conclusions of law, read together, show that rents to the extent of two hundred dollars accrued after the commencement of the action, and that two hundred dollars was already due when the action was begun; and it is clear that the judgment was intended to be, and is in fact, for the aggregate of these two sums. Such a judgment is within the law above cited.