Marcus Brown Holding Co. v. Feldman
The Court upheld New York's emergency rent laws that let apartment tenants stay in their homes after their leases expired, rejecting a landlord's argument that the laws unconstitutionally impaired its lease contracts.
Following its companion decision in Block v. Hirsh, the Court held that a genuine housing emergency let the state override ordinary contract and property rights, and that requiring landlords to keep providing heat, water, and other services did not amount to forced labor under the Thirteenth Amendment.
“But contracts are made subject to this exercise of the power of the State when otherwise justified, as we have held this to be.”
The Court's core reasoning that emergency police power can override private lease contracts.
How it got here: A special three-judge federal district court heard the case on the merits, upheld the New York laws, and dismissed the landlord's bill; the landlord appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A company that owned a large New York City apartment building sued its tenants, who stayed in their apartment after their lease expired on September 30, 1920, relying on new New York laws passed to address a housing emergency. The company also sued the local prosecutor to stop him from enforcing a related law that made it a crime for landlords to cut off heat, water, or other services to such tenants.
The question before the Court
Could New York force a landlord to let tenants stay in their apartment after their lease ended, under an emergency rent law passed during a housing shortage?
Why it matters
Landlords in crowded cities lost the normal ability to evict tenants simply because a lease had ended, so long as tenants paid a reasonable rent, during the declared housing emergency. The ruling also meant landlords could be criminally prosecuted for cutting off basic services like heat or water to pressure holdover tenants out.
What changes now
The lower court's decree upholding the New York emergency rent laws was affirmed, meaning the tenants could remain in the apartment under the law's protections. The laws themselves were temporary, set to expire on November 1, 1922, and the decision applied the same reasoning the Court had just laid out in the companion case, Block v. Hirsh, upholding similar emergency legislation.
What this does not decide
The Court's ruling rested on assuming, without independently reviewing, that a real housing emergency existed, as the state courts had found. It did not hold that states may override lease and contract rights whenever they wish, only when a genuine, temporary emergency justifies exercising the state's police power.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (1). Justice Holmes (author).
Dissent (4). Justice McKenna (author), joined by Justice Chief Justice, Justice Van Devanter, and Justice McReynolds.
Dissent — Justice McKenna
“There is not a line in any of them that declares that the explicit and definite covenants of private individuals engaged in a private and personal matter are subject to impairment by a state law”The dissent's objection that no precedent supports overriding private lease covenants.
The dissent argued that no case cited by the majority actually supports letting a state law override the explicit, freely made covenants of private individuals in a private lease. It warned that if states could impair contracts this way, that power would be superior to every other limit in the Constitution, leaving property rights entirely at the mercy of a state's own view of its interests, and urged treating the Constitution's contract protections as paramount rather than bending them to an emergency. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Following its decision the same day in Block v. Hirsh, the Court assumed, based on the New York legislature's declaration and the state courts' findings, that a genuine public emergency in housing existed, without independently re-examining that factual premise.
- The Court held that private contracts, including lease covenants to surrender possession, are made subject to the state's police power (its authority to regulate for public health, safety, and welfare) when that power is being exercised for a justified purpose, so the emergency rent laws did not unconstitutionally impair the lease or the new lease scheduled to begin in October 1920.
- Addressing the claim that the laws unfairly singled out certain cities and building types, the Court found the classification reasonable because the housing shortage was concentrated in crowded urban centers, and exceptions for business buildings, hotels, and new construction were explained by the need to encourage new building and by the different economics of those properties.
- Turning to the claim that requiring landlords to keep providing heat, water, and other services violated the Thirteenth Amendment's ban on compelled labor, the Court reasoned that these services, unlike personal services a person is forced to perform, are impersonal and are simply the necessary, standard incidents that come attached to running an apartment building.
- Because the services were not the kind of personal labor the Thirteenth Amendment protects against, and because the rent laws were a valid exercise of the police power during the declared emergency, the Court found no constitutional defect in the laws as applied.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Block v. Hirsh
The Court applies the same day's ruling upholding emergency rent control as a valid use of state police power.