What Happened: A fitness center asked its landlord to refund the rent it paid during the 15 weeks that it couldn’t operate because government COVID-19 shutdown orders were in effect. The landlord refused. So, the tenant sued. Both sides moved for summary judgment—...
What Happened: As courts continue to routinely reject force majeure, impossibility, frustration of purpose, and other defenses, it’s hardly surprising that retail tenants would come up with new theories to excuse their failure to pay rent during COVID-19 shutdowns. The...
What Happened: Seven years into its 10-year lease, a restaurant decided to permanently shut down its business and surrender the premises to the shopping center landlord. The key question: Did the landlord actually accept the surrender? The landlord claimed it did no such thing...
What Happened: In January 2021, a tenant signed an offer to purchase the building with closing to occur within 45 days. But after six months of unsuccessful negotiation, the deal fell through. The landlord then sued to evict the tenant for failing to pay rent for the period...
What Happened: A restaurant exercised its renewal option but furnished notice only after the option period had expired. A month later, the landlord sold the property and notified the new owner that the restaurant’s tenancy was now month to month. The tenant sent the next...
What Happened: A landlord got agita after reading in the local newspaper that its tenant, the local Golden Corral restaurant, had closed down. Upon finding the property apparently abandoned and in very dirty condition, it changed the locks. It then sent the tenant a notice to...
What Happened: The landlord and tenant performed a massive buildout to make the more than 100,000 square feet of office space leased suitable for a financial services firm with “immense computing power” and infrastructure needs. Once the 15-year lease expired, the...
What Happened: Two years into a five-year lease, a medical center stopped paying rent and abandoned the property. At least that’s what it looked like to the property manager who found the place empty and stripped of all furnishings. The sign on the door indicating that the...
What Happened:Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A restaurant tenant struggled to pay rent after the governor issued a COVID-19 shutdown order in...
What Happened: Frustrated by the landlord’s failure to remedy unsanitary conditions at the site, a warehouse tenant moved out of the property and stopped paying rent. In the lawsuit that followed, the tenant claimed the landlord violated the implied warranty of...
What Happened: A landlord sued Saks, Inc., for failure to honor a corporate guaranty of its subsidiary’s obligation to pay rent under its shopping center lease. Saks owes us attorneys’ fees and consequential damages covering the loss in the property’s value we...
