Judgment was delivered by Judge P. Grant Jones in H.M. Supreme Court yesterday following the hearing of the case in which Mrs. E. M. Pecaric, Mrs. E. Blatchford, and Mrs. F. E. Dohse, all tenants of "The Palms," 211 Avenue Haig, sought an injuction restraining the landlord of the house, Mrs. L. E. Freeman, from obstructing them or their servants from using servants rooms alleged to have been leased to them by the defendant.
They asked for an order 3 that Mrs. Freeman remove boardings erected by her to obstruct the use of these rooms, with damages for the obstruction as from October. 1.
On behalf of Mrs. Blatchford and Mrs. Dohse—Mrs. Pecaric was unable to be present at the hearing owing to illness—the Judge granted the injunction, the order to be obeyed within 24 hours of its service on defendant. Damages for trespass were also awardable, the Judge added, but they were not discussed at the hearing and there had, moreover, been failure to comply with the provisions of Rule 97 and he proposed, therefore, to reserve them for further consider: tion, if necessary.
Plaintiffs, who were represented at the hearing by Mr. J. E. Badeley, occupied No. 5 and No. 10 apartments at "The Palms", the terms of the tenancies being for one year. Mrs. Blatchford gave evidence that she had asked defendant's husband whether there was a servant's room to go with the apartment; he replied that there was and she and her servant inspected the room in question. Mrs. Dohse told a similar story, she being inform ed that every apartment had servants' quariers for the lighting of which a Charge of $140 was made. When she signed the lease she asked the same question and was told that she could have the servants' quarto "Extensive Repairs" it was stated, were liding behind No. Both the plaintiffs employed a husband and wife as "boy" and amah and on September 21 both received notices signed by the defendant's husband requiring their servants' rooms to be given up for "extensive repairs" on October 1, on which date final notices were served upon them for the servants to remove their belongings forthwith as the carpenters were already on the premise "It was admitted at the bearm; the Judge stated, "that the rooms were not required for repairs, but that defendant wished to get rid of the servants for various alleged acts of misconduct, She had complained to the second defendant about the birth of a child in her servants' room; the birth was apparently premature and the baby was removed about a month later as soon as somebody could be found to look after it."
he had complained to the third defendant," he went on, "that the latter's boy had been impudent to her; the plaintiff investigated the complaint and decided not to dismiss him og required by the defendant. Both these ladies said that they had re. ceived no other complaints against their servants, but there had been disputes about other matters about which I am not concerned here. The defendant and her husband said that they had seen other Chinese frequenting the building but they were unable to identify the quarters so frequented; the husband also said that the tenants were always complaining. I think the grievances about the amah's baby and the boy's impudence have been resuscitated solely to justify the defendant's actions on October 1 last when the rooms were boarded up" the Judge added.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.