Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/108

82 S2 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. rents reserved, except where (since the statute of Quia Emptores) the reservation was upon a grant of the land in fee, and in all cases of rents granted, and of rents reserved upon grants of land in fee, provided a right to distrain was expressly given. 6. In all cases of rents reserved, even upon grants of land in fee, the estate granted could be made to depend, by means of a con- dition subsequent, upon payment of the rent, i. e., it could be pro- vided that, in case of failure to pay the rent, the estate of the grantee in the land should cease, and the title to the land revest in the grantor. This remedy was of less value, however, than at first sight it seems to be; for, ist, the grantor could recover possession of the land, against the will of the grantee, only by an action of eject- ment; 2dly, as such a condition worked a forfeiture of the grant, it was regarded by the law with disfavor, and hence the enforcement of it was surrounded by so many difficulties that it became well- nigh impracticable; 1 3dly, at any time before the grantee was actually dispossessed of the land, he could obtain from a court of equity an injunction against any further proceedings at law, on paying the rent in arrear, with interest and costs ; and, 4thly, even after he was dispossessed by means of an action of ejectment, a court of equity would not only restore him to the possession at any time on the terms just stated, but require the grantor to ac- count rigorously for the rents and profits during all the time that he had held the possession.^ Moreover, such a condition could never be made in case of a rent granted, as there was in that case no grant of the land to which the condition could be annexed. 7. A grantor of a rent,^ however, as well as a grantor of land, 1 Duppaz/. Mayo, i Wms. Saund. 282, 287, n. 16. In Jackson v. Harrison, 17 Johns. 66, which was an action of ejectment by a landlord against a tenant to enforce a for- feiture for non-payment of rent, the plaintiff was defeated because he demanded the rent in the afternoon of the day on which it became due, instead of demanding it just before sunset. 2 The statute of 4 Geo. II. c. 28, s. 2, contains the following recital : " Whereas great inconveniences do frequently happen to lessors and landlords, in cases of re-entry for non-payment of rent, by reason of the many niceties that attend re-entries at common law ; and for as much as, when a legal re-entry is made, the landlord or lessor must be at the expense, charge, and delay of recovering in ejectment before he can obtain the actual possession o( the demised premises ; and it often happens that, after such re- entry made, the lessee or his assignee, upon one or more bills filed in the court of equity, not only holds out the lessor or landlord by an injunction from recovering the possession, but likewise, pending the said suit, do run much more in arrear, without giving any security for the rents due, when the said re-entry was made, or which shall or do afterwards incur." 8 Jemott V. Cowley, i Wms. Saund. 112.