How have the courts dealt with title disputes between a landlord and tenant when the landlord's lease expires?

In the case before us the plaintiff's title rested upon the lease and its extension. It did not rest upon either standing alone, but the demise to the defendant was upon both. They were not more valid when the defendant took his lease than when he refused to pay rent. Nothing had occurred to weaken or impair either. By accepting the lease, he recognized the title as it then existed, in substance agreed to accept it as a good title and a good foundation for the term bargained for; and he cannot now controvert one part more than the other. His defense is not that he has been evicted or disturbed in the possession, nor that any one but the plaintiff claims title to the demised premises during the term, but simply that one branch or strand of the plaintiff's title has dropped off. The recital in his own lease showed that it would do so during the first year of his term. He now says, not that anything has occurred to defeat or change its character or impair its [108 N.Y. 565]validity, but simply that it never was valid; in other words, that his landlord's title was good as to part of the term and bad as to another part of the term. In effect the plaintiff said: I have this lease and its extension; here they are. I will let you a portion of the term described in them. The defendant accepted, agreed to pay the rent, and was put into possession. He was put in under one as much as the other. He now refuses to pay rent; saying to his landlord, Your title is not good. To allow such a defense to prevail would create an anomaly not called for by any precedent or rule of law or justice. The case referred to by the court below, and again cited by the respondent, is Lamson v. Clarkson, 113 Mass. 348. In that case the landlord's estate in the premises was for the life of one Lancy. He died during the term, and the court held that the landlord could not recover for subsequently accruing rent. There the event on which the plaintiff's entire title depended occurred after the defendant took possession, and by setting it up he denied nothing which he had once admitted. He simply showed that the title under which he entered had expired. It also appeared that the reversioner had given him notice to pay rent to his landlord. In the case before us it is quite different. The defendant,