Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/170

142 142 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. IV. The Relation between Depositors having a Community of Lit: rest in a Safe, Where two or more individuals rent a safe together, it is cus- tomary for them to sign an agreement on the books of the com- pany reading somewhat as follows: "We agree to hire and hold safe No. — as joint tenants, the survivor or survivors to have access thereto in case of the death of either." In the case of Hackett v. Patterson (i6 N. Y. Supp. i/o), the court was called upon to define the nature of such a tenancy and the rights and interests of the parties in the safe. They were here regarded in the same way as co-tenants of real property, and, whether joint tenants or tenants in common, as coming within the rules govern- ing the similar relation in the holding of real property. The plaintiffs' testator and the defendant leased a safe in the vaults of the New York Safe-Deposit Company, and, on the death of the testator, his interest in these was, with the defendant's consent, transferred to the plaintiffs on the books of the company for the period of one year. A few days before the expiration of such year, the defendant procured a renewal of the lease in his own name, to the exclusion of the plaintiffs. The receipt for rent paid by the plaintiffs stated that the safe would not be deemed to be relin- quished until the keys should be returned. The plaintiffs retained the keys until some months after the expiration of the lease. It was held that the renewal, privately acquired by the defendant in his own name, inured to the benefit of the plaintiffs, his co-tenants. In rendering the opinion of the court, Bischoff, J., said : — ''The new lease constituted the plaintiffs and defendant Patterson joint lessees, and whether their relation thereunder was that of joint- tenants or tenants in common is equally immaterial in disposing of the question presented for adjudication, since either relation involves the application of the same principles of equity jurisprudence. * Equality is equity,' and, steadily adhering to the application oflhis familiar maxim, courts of equity have ever regarded the rights of joint tenants and ten- ants in common respecting their common estate to be reciprocal, neither being permitted during the continuance of the co-tenancy furtively to acquire and hold any advantage which would not also inure to the other's benefit, provided the latter manifests a willingness to assume his just proportion of any burdens attending its acquisition and maintenance. . . . The only adequate relief was to accord plaintiffs that access to the safe to which, as beneficiaries of the leasehold interest, they were entitled,