Practical Training for Project Managers & Supervisors Two-Part Webinar Series: Part Two
Discussing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the 2020 Election
Construction Delays in the Time of Coronavirus: A Legal Perspective
II-30- Tackling 3 Big Wage and Hour Questions for Employers
Employment Law This Week: Wellness Program Regulations, Cumulative Liquidated Damages, ACA Transgender Discrimination Rules, Form I-9
Following years of bolstering residential tenant protections, Ordinance 126982 marks one of the City of Seattle's first major forays into policing the commercial landlord-tenant relationship. The ordinance, which went into...more
Last week the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (SJC) held that, despite defaulting only one month into its five-year lease, a commercial tenant is bound by a liquidated damages clause requiring a lump-sum payment of...more
On September 25, 2023, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued an important decision that affects commercial landlords’ ability to accelerate rent as liquidated damages after a Lessee’s default in Cummings Properties,...more
In the December 5, 2022 opinion (Cummings Properties, LLC v. Darryl C. Hines, No. 21-P-1153), the Massachusetts Appeals Court considered whether a commercial landlord can collect accelerated rent upon a tenant default,...more
Massachusetts' highest court, in its 2007 opinion in Cummings Properties, LLC v. National Communications Corp., 449 Mass. 490, 494 (2007), shocked commercial leasing lawyers by announcing that accelerated rent clauses (i.e.,...more
On December 5, the Massachusetts Appeals Court issued an important decision impacting commercial landlords’ ability to accelerate rent as liquidated damages after a Lessee’s default in Cummings Properties, LLC vs. Darryl C....more
Nearly a decade ago, I wrote an article for the New England Real Estate Journal about a decision issued by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that provided an important reminder to commercial leasing practitioners on...more
In its December 5, 2022 slip opinion for Cummings Properties, LLC v. Darryl C. Hines, No. 21-P-1153, the Massachusetts Appeals Court held that a provision of a commercial lease that accelerated all remaining rent as...more
The world is transforming in the post-covid era and business needs are evolving as consumer habits change. These changes can directly impact the space where you conduct business and have you contemplating what to do about...more
A commercial lease co-tenancy clause conditions a retail tenant’s opening for business or continuing operations at the designated property upon another tenant opening for business or continuing operations at the same...more
In the wake of government-ordered moratoriums on commercial tenant evictions, how does a California commercial tenant’s security deposit come into play as an available landlord remedy for a lease default? Commercial lease...more
Is a Liquidated Damages Clause Enforceable? Rue21, Inc. v Los Lunas Inv’rs, LLC, no. 18-CV-715, 2019 WL 1375405(W.D.Pa. Mar. 27, 2019). Landlord executed a letter of intent with a fashion retailer tenant in 2015 for a...more
New York bankruptcy court cautions against liquidated damages provisions that are “invariant to the gravity of the breach.” Liquidated damages provisions must be based on a “causal link” between the anticipated harm and...more
Under California law, a provision of a contract found to impose a penalty is unenforceable as a forfeiture and contrary to public policy. The characteristic feature of a penalty is the lack of proportional relation between...more
A good deal of our practice involves litigation over busted deals – sales of real estate, sales of businesses, commercial leases. By the time we’re asked to get involved, the deal is usually already dead, with the parties...more
TRUE LEASE V. DISGUISED SECURITY INTEREST - The characterization of a transaction as either a true “lease” or a secured transaction is likely to impact the putative lessor’s rights and remedies both with respect to the...more