Owner Loses

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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 is, a claim to be reimbursed—against the tenant to recover the amount it had paid to the landlord.

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 terminated the following month.

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 . . .

Facts: The space that a medical office tenant leased for its operations was flooded several times due to leaks in the building’s roof. Each time a flooding incident happened, the tenant informed the owner, who refused to make repairs. The tenant lost over $1.5 million in equipment due to water damage. It sued the owner, claiming that the owner had breached the lease by not making repairs and demanded that the owner pay for the damage to the equipment and release the tenant from the lease. The owner asked a trial court for a judgment in its favor without a trial.

Facts: A clothing retailer tenant signed a lease for space at a shopping center. The lease included cotenancy provisions that required the owner to lease space to three major tenants. If all three tenants were open and operating continuously, the retail tenant paid minimum rent. In the event that one or more of those tenants stopped operating, the retail tenant could pay reduced rent and it would be considered a breach of the lease. One of the tenants moved out of its space before the expiration of its lease.

Facts: A dry cleaning business subleased space in a shopping center. The business owner was also the guarantor on the sublease. The subtenant prematurely vacated the space. The landlord sued the subtenant. A trial court ruled in favor of the landlord, awarding it $343,000 in damages. The damages represented lost rent over the remainder of the sublease, real estate escalation charges, the cost of a new sign, the costs of preparing the space for re-rental, and the proportional real estate broker’s fee for obtaining a new tenant.

Facts: An owner and tenant signed a lease for a four-story parking garage with two retail spaces below it. The owner served the tenant with a written notice to cure 21 lease violations primarily related to the physical deterioration of the building caused by the tenant. In response, the tenant asked a trial court for a Yellowstone injunction to prevent the owner from taking any steps to terminate the tenancy until the matter could be resolved.

Facts: The owner of a movie theater signed a lease for space at a mall. Over a period of time, maintenance issues, like timely garbage removal, became apparent. The tenant asked the owner to take care of maintenance and upkeep, asserting that the lease and common area maintenance (CAM) agreement required it to do so. The owner claimed that the lease and the agreement didn’t require it to maintain common areas and that the onus was on the tenant to make repairs and clean up.