Opinion ID: 757518
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lease Damages

Text: 59
60 Portland 76 argued that the jury ought to award $2,355,000 in damages for breach of Unocal's obligations under the lease. The jury in its special verdict awarded $1 million for damages caused by breach of the lease, and $2,307,440 caused by violation of the Robinson-Patman Act (the jury wrote that $1,307,440 of this figure was not included in the breach of lease damages, and $1,000,000 was). 61 Unocal appeals this award on the ground that there was insufficient evidence for the jury to reach it. The argument is that Portland 76's expert witness did not segregate the lease damages from the Robinson-Patman damages, so neither could the jury. Unocal correctly argues that it was the plaintiff's burden to put on proof from which the jury could ascertain damages with reasonable certainty. See Vonravensberg v. Houck-Carrow Corp., 60 Or.App. 412, 653 P.2d 1297, 1299-1300 (1982). 62 It is true that the expert witness did not segregate the damages. He gave the jury the bottom line from a spreadsheet he prepared projecting his estimate of the financial loss from failure to improve, renovate, and do more maintenance at the truck stop. He did not give two projections, one based on what the lease covered, and another based on proportional improvements to other Unocal truckstops. The jury could not have used any bottom line from this expert witness as its damages figure. 63 The trial judge denied the motion for judgment because in his view the jury had before it other evidence from which it could rationally segregate the damages. Also, he concluded, the jury had sufficient data so that it could calculate damages without the assistance of an expert. The lease is extremely detailed with respect to what Unocal was obligated to do, and the jury was instructed that the lease does not provide that Unocal is required to remodel, upgrade or improve the entire truckstop facility or any component part, other than as provided in Exhibit C to the lease. The judge was within his discretion in evaluating the evidence as sufficient to go to the jury on damages. That the jury did segregate damages is apparent from its having awarded $1,304,440 less for breach of the lease than for non-lease Robinson-Patman damages. The jury may have used a different theory from the one plaintiff's expert witness used to calculate the damages. Though necessarily an estimate (as any expert's opinion would have had to have been), the award was not excessively speculative. Cf. State Highway Commission v. Central Paving Co., 240 Or. 71, 76-77, 399 P.2d 1019, 1023 (1965); Valley Inland Pacific Constructors, Inc. v. Clackamas Water District No. 2, 43 Or.App. 527, 533, 603 P.2d 1381, 1386 (1979). 64
65 The trial judge held that as a matter of law, the jury could not award damages for Unocal's breaches of its lease obligations, to the extent that such damages might have accrued after the end of the lease. Portland 76 argues that this was mistaken, because damages were foreseeable subsequent to the lease period. Portland 76 argues that Harold Schnitzer Properties v. Tradewell Group, Inc., 104 Or.App. 19, 799 P.2d 180 (1990), and Vonravensberg v. Houck-Carrow Corp., 60 Or.App. 412, 653 P.2d 1297 (1982), so hold. 66 The trial judge was correct. Harold Schnitzer Properties is irrelevant, because it is an appeal from an arbitration award, and the court held that arbitrators have the power to decide the law and act within their authority even if they apply the law erroneously. Vonravensberg is also irrelevant, because it is a tort action against a third party, not an action by a tenant against its landlord for breach of the lease. 67 A third party is not necessarily entitled to take advantage of a landlord's right to end a lease, where it is foreseeable that the landlord will renew the lease. That is the proposition supported by Vonravensberg. But a landlord is entitled to take advantage of its own lease provision providing a termination date to the tenant's right to possess the property and profit from possession. Unocal's duties to Portland 76 regarding the real estate ended when the lease ended. Leaseholds that end do not, by their very nature, bind the parties indefinitely. United States v. 42.13 Acres of Land, 73 F.3d 953, 956 (9th Cir.1996). We held in an analogous case that a landlord does not have to pay for its own contractually preserved right to do as it chooses: 68 It is one thing for the market to value the probability that a third party will exercise its liberty in a particular way, and make [a defendant] pay for that market value, but quite another to make [the defendant] pay for its own contractually preserved right to do as it chooses. 69 42.13 Acres of Land, 73 F.3d at 956. 70 Portland 76 argues that because Unocal failed to perform its maintenance duties under the lease, it began its relationship with its new landlord, National, with an inferior facility, and that led to subsequent damages, citing Arnott v. American Oil Co., 609 F.2d 873, 887 (8th Cir.1979). Arnott does involve a lease by the defendant to the plaintiff, but is not in point, because the theories upon which damages for the period subsequent to the lease were awarded were fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and price fixing in violation of antitrust laws, not breach of the lease. Unocal had no duty under its lease with Portland 76 to ensure that Portland 76's next lease with a different lessor was of a particular grade of facilities.