Restaurant Claims Lack of Parking Ends Its Duty to Pay Rent

What Happened: A tenant wanting to open a new restaurant in Dallas expressed concern about the lack of nearby offsite parking but signed the lease anyway. The landlord set out to find more parking but was unsuccessful. As a result, the tenant decided it couldn’t go through with its restaurant plans and stopped paying rent. The landlord sued, but the tenant claimed that the unavailability of parking was a so-called “force majeure” event relieving it of its duty to pay rent under the lease. The landlord disagreed and moved for summary judgment—that is, an immediate ruling in its favor without a trial.

Decision: The federal court said no dice.

Reasoning: The lease defined “force majeure event” as “any delay due to strikes, riots, acts of God, shortages of labor or materials, war, governmental laws, regulations or restrictions or any other causes of any kind whatsoever which are beyond the reasonable control of such party.” This language was broad enough to include the landlord’s failure to secure the necessary parking, which could be interpreted as being either: (1) a cause beyond reasonable control; or (2) a delay due to “governmental laws, regulations or restrictions” to the extent the city had rejected the landlord’s application for a parking variance. And because the clause was ambiguous, the case would have to go to trial.

• WC 1899 McKinney Ave., LLC v. STK Dallas, LLC: 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80042, 2019 WL 2090692159 (May 2019)