Does Street Closure Violate Restaurant Tenant's Right to Quiet Enjoyment?

What Happened: A high-end restaurant operator leased property on Holyoke Street in Harvard Square knowing that the university/landlord was planning to undertake a major, four-year construction project spanning an entire city block across the street. The blasting work began two months later. A few months later, the contractor, with the city and Harvard’s permission, closed Holyoke Street during work hours to facilitate construction. The restaurant closed shortly thereafter and sued Harvard for breaching the lease, including among other things, the covenant of quiet enjoyment. The court granted Harvard’s motion for summary judgment—that is, a ruling without a trial.

Ruling: The Massachusetts appeals court reversed the ruling and ordered the quiet enjoyment claim to go to trial.

Reasoning: The closure of Holyoke Street clearly interfered with the tenant’s right to operate a restaurant on the leased premises. The lower court dismissed these concerns by noting that the tenant was “well aware” that construction was going to occur during its tenancy but didn’t address the issue when it signed the lease. But the appeals court begged to differ on these findings. General knowledge about the construction doesn’t necessarily equate to specific knowledge that Holyoke Street would be closed. As a result, a trial was necessary to determine whether the closure seriously interfered with the restaurant’s tenancy or deprived it of the reasonable access that Harvard knew the tenant needed to meet the lease purpose of operating a high-end restaurant.

• Classic Restaurant Concepts, LLC v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 104 Mass. App. Ct. 323, 2024 Mass. App. LEXIS 81, 2024 WL 3152005