Owner Loses

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Facts: A property manager was hired by his father-in-law, the owner of a struggling shopping center, to manage the property. The owner agreed to compensate the property manager at some point in the future, when or if the center became profitable. The property manager agreed, believing that he had a “deferred compensation deal” with the owner.

Facts: An electronics franchise signed a lease with the owner of a retail lifestyle center.

Facts: A customer was injured when he fell on ice in the parking lot of shopping center that consisted of a several businesses in stand-alone buildings, including a national home improvement tenant. The home improvement tenant's lease required the owner and property manager to maintain the common areas of the property, including providing snow and ice removal. Each tenant was required to pay a pro rata share of common area maintenance costs.

Facts: Two tenant employees were trapped and repeatedly bounced up and down uncontrollably for almost an hour and a half in a malfunctioning elevator in the office building where they worked. The office building was owned and managed by a commercial property management company. Both employees needed medical attention, including surgery, for injuries they had suffered from the bouncing. They sued the property management company, claiming that it had negligently ma...

Facts: A customer slipped and fell on the lobby floor of a Post Office while trying to mail a letter for his employer, injuring his face and head. The customer claimed that he slipped because the lobby floor was wet due to other customers tracking water into the Post Office during a rainstorm.

Facts: A pedestrian was injured when he fell through a concrete-filled metal grate in a public sidewalk. The grate covered a defunct stairwell to the basement of a building on the property abutting the sidewalk. The stairwell had been reconstructed with the grate by the abutting property's owner in 1968 in accordance with city specifications. Before the reconstruction, it had been installed solely for the abutting owner's convenience.

Facts: A fast-food restaurant had an exclusive right to sell “sandwiches and subs” in a shopping center that consisted of three buildings (Building A, Building B, and Building C). The fast-food restaurant tenant was located in Building A.

Facts: An owner of a Miami, Fla., office building that was still under construction signed a 10-year lease with a tenant under which the tenant would move in 90 days after completion of the building. The lease was signed by one of the owner's employees and the tenant's president and vice president. However, there were no witnesses to any of the signatures. As the building neared completion, the owner repudiated—that is, rejected—the lease beca...

Facts: An office tenant notified her building's manager about a dangerous condition in a common walkway. Although the manager promised to repair the walkway, it was not fixed, nor was any warning sign posted. After injuring her right foot, right arm, and both knees when she tripped on the faulty walkway, the tenant sued the building's owner, management company, and manager for negligence based on premises liability. The trial court awarded judgment withou...

Facts: The owner of a shopping center replaced its roof in February 2006. Soon after, a tenant leased retail space in the center to operate her clothing store, but water began seeping in through leaks in the roof, and by June 2006 the entire store was flooded. As a result, much of the tenant's inventory was damaged.

After a brief and unsuccessful re-opening, the tenant's store closed permanently in November 2006. The tenant sued the owner for breach...