Court Opinion

ID: 9746284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:10:52.819937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:11.496738
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result. However, I do not believe this is an appropriate case to reach the issue of whether a commercial landlord is generally required to mitigate damages. Since the grant of allocatur was limited to that issue, I suggest that the more prudent course would be to dismiss the appeal as improvidently granted.
As the majority notes, this action was based on an acceleration clause in the lease. The parties thus provided in the lease for their respective rights, obligations, and remedies in the event of a breach.1 Under the terms of the lease, the landlord may relet the premises, but is not obligated to do so. Accordingly, this case does not present the issue that the majority decides, whether the common law should require a landlord to mitigate damages.
NEWMAN, J., joins this Concurring Opinion.

. Paragraph 42 of the lease states the landlord's rights in the event of a default. It appears to set the amount of liquidated damages at 25% of the remaining installments of rent (remaining installments of rent less "the fair rental value of the premises,” fair rental value being defined as “seventy-five percent of the minimum rent provided in Paragraph 5.”) The landlord is also entitled to recover, among other things, the minimum rent, additional rent, and other costs due under the lease, "less net rent, if any, actually collected by the Landlord on reletting” ¶ 42(3)(emphasis added). These latter amounts are payable on the days they would have been payable had the lease not been terminated. It is not clear whether the verdict of $46,797.09 plus interest was based on this formula, but it does not appear that this amount was ever challenged on appeal.