{"id":123,"date":"2022-08-05T21:43:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T21:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=123"},"modified":"2024-01-04T21:33:15","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T21:33:15","slug":"tenants-have-mostly-lost-frustration-of-purpose-claims-when-they-could-not-pay-rent-during-covid-19-lockdowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2022\/08\/05\/tenants-have-mostly-lost-frustration-of-purpose-claims-when-they-could-not-pay-rent-during-covid-19-lockdowns\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenants have mostly lost \u201cfrustration of purpose\u201d claims when they could not pay rent during Covid-19 lockdowns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In accord with most courts, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that a restaurant lease was not void for \u201cfrustration of purpose\u201d when the restaurant tenant could not make rent payments because of a gubernatorial order for restaurants to shut down during the early stages of the Covid-19 disaster. AGW Sono Partners, LLC v. Downtown Soho, LLC,<\/a> 273 A.3d 186 (Conn. 2022). The court found that the lease did not prevent the restaurant from selling food for take-out rather than for consumption in a sit-down restaurant. Nor did the lease contain a \u201cforce majeur\u201d clause which (depending on its wording) might or might not classify the pandemic as an \u201cact of God\u201d or similar problem that would entitle the tenant to get out of its lease obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Massachusetts court came to the opposite conclusion when the lease language limited the tenant to operating \u201conly a caf\u00e9 with a sit-down restaurant menu and for no other purpose.\u201d UMNV 205-207 Newbury, LLC v. Caffe Nero Americas, Inc<\/a>., 2021 WL 956069 (Mass. Super. Ct. 2021).A second interesting issue in the AGW Sono case was whether the landlord failed to mitigate damages when it found a new tenant to take over the lease and give it six month\u2019s occupation rent-free as an inducement to sign the lease. The court found that the tenant had the burden of proving that this action was unreasonable or not necessary to relet the premises.<\/p>\n\n\n

Leaseholds<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In accord with most courts, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that a restaurant lease was not void for \u201cfrustration of purpose\u201d when the restaurant tenant could not make rent payments because of a gubernatorial order for restaurants to shut down during the early stages of the Covid-19 disaster. AGW Sono Partners, LLC v. Downtown Soho, LLC, 273 A.3d 186 (Conn. 2022). The court found that the lease did not prevent the restaurant from selling food for take-out rather than for consumption in a sit-down restaurant. Nor did the lease contain a \u201cforce majeur\u201d clause which (depending on its wording) might or might not classify the pandemic as an \u201cact of God\u201d or similar problem that would entitle the tenant to get out of its lease obligations. A Massachusetts court came to the opposite conclusion when the lease language limited the tenant to operating \u201conly a caf\u00e9 with a sit-down restaurant menu and …<\/p>\n

Tenants have mostly lost \u201cfrustration of purpose\u201d claims when they could not pay rent during Covid-19 lockdowns<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leaseholds"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}