Cochrane v. Tuttle

Citations

• 75 Ill. 361

Syllabus

<p>1. Excessive damages — emoting tenant. Even where the relation of landlord and tenant exists as to a part of the defendant’s dwelling house, and the tenant is evicted by the landlord closing his doors against her, there being no force used, and the tenant suffers no personal injury, and recovers all the property left in the house' by her, and there is no proof of actual damages, a verdict in favor of the tenant, in a suit against the landlord, for $1,250, will be regarded so excessive in amount as to call for a reversal of the judgment.</p> <p>2. Landlord and tenant — whether facts of the case show such relation. Where a party testified that she went into a portion of the defendant’s dwelling house, certain rooms being reserved, and that she was to board the defendant, his wife and two children, and had the privilege of taking in other boarders, and that this arrangement was for one year, but did not deny defendant’s statement that the house was “ to be his house,” the court say they doubted if the relation of landlord and tenant existed, and were inclined to hold that the contract did not create, in such party, any estate, either at will, or for any definite period, in the defendant’s house, or any part of it.</p> <p>3. Evidence—advice of counsel in mitigation of damages. In case by a plaintiff for being wrongfully shut out of a house, a portion of which she claimed to have rented of the defendant, there being no force or violence used, the defendant offered to prove that he acted upon competent legal advice in what he did, which the court refused to admit: Held, that the proof was admissible, not in bar of the action, or in mitigation of actual damages, but in mitigation of any exemplary damages, and that the court erred in refusing to admit it.</p>