Owner Loses

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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 park...

What Happened: A landlord sent an email to a restaurant tenant with the following message:

Reminder of increase and renewal

I just wanted to remind you that your first five-year lease agreement comes to an end on November 30, 2015. Please confirm that you want to continue with the lease. There is an increase of 3% each year starting in December, 2015 [sic] and the rent will...

What Happened: Tenants leased space in a Long Beach, Calif., shopping mall for use as a live music and entertainment venue. But when they opened their doors, they got lambasted with noise complaints from other tenants. Turn down the volume or change your business, the landlord demanded. The tenants were caught off guard, especially because the landlord had told them that there had been no noise complaints agai...

What Happened: This case began when an Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) employee fell 15 feet after the passenger ramp she was operating collapsed. The employee sued the landlord, the Port owner, for negligence due to a defect on the property. A federal jury awarded her more than $16 million in damages. The landlord appealed, claiming that the tenant, AMHS, was liable because it had exclusive use of the terminal property where the accident occurred a...

What Happened: A retail tenant in Michigan moved out of the space in the middle of the year even though the lease didn’t expire until Dec. 31. It forgot to make provisions for regulating the heat when the weather turned cold, and a water pipe ...

Facts: A retail tenant signed a lease with one three-year renewal option. The landlord required a guaranty in order to move forward with the deal. After the initial lease term and renewal were complete, an amendment extended the option to renew for five years and increased the amount of rent. There were two more lease renewals not originally specified in the original lease. The guarantor didn’t sign any of these modifications.

 Facts: A landlord and a tenant signed a lease that provided that the landlord would insure the building and the tenant would insure its personal property inside the building. When the property was later damaged by a fire, the landlord’s insurance covered the loss. The landlord’s insurer later filed a subrogation action—that i...

Facts: A tenant rented space for its office on two floors of a building. When it attempted to exercise its option to renew its lease for an additional five-year term, the landlord offered to buy out the lease, but the tenant rejected the offer. A few weeks later, the tenant received a termination notice, in which the landlord claimed that the tenant had been “late” with certain rental payments and that, as a result, the lease would be termin...

Facts: A jewelry store tenant that leased space in a shopping center complained repeatedly about a sewage smell and mold problem in the store. It claimed that it was losing business. Its complaints were documented in multiple emails over the course of several months. For its part, the landlord had maintenance experts examine various areas of the store that could be causing the problem, such as clogged drains and leaks in the roof.

Facts: A marine supply store signed a lease for retail space. Under the lease, the owner of the space needed to complete improvements to the property before delivering possession. The lease included the following in its definition of “delivery”: “Landlord shall be deemed to have delivered possession of the Premises to Tenant when Landlord has given Tenant ten (10) days’ written notice that Landlord has substantially completed . . .