Court Opinion

ID: 9609606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:29:05.983622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:51.319199
License: Public Domain

Judge GREENE
concurring in the result.
I agree with the majority that the eviction of the tenant terminated the lease and that the tenant is therefore no longer liable *418for rent accruing after the eviction. Robert S. Schoshinski, American Law of Landlord and Tenant § 6.1, at 382 (1980) (liability for rent ceases upon termination of lease). The lease at issue specifically provided that the landlord had the right to terminate and, upon termination, to reenter. I do not agree that an evicted tenant is, nonetheless, liable for damages in the amount of “the rent for the remainder of the term, less the amount received from the new tenant.” In the absence of a residual liability or indemnity clause in the lease agreement, American Law of Landlord and Tenant § 6.1, at 383-84, which this lease does not contain, the tenant is not liable for any rent or damages after the cessation of the estate. 11 Samuel Williston, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts § 1403 (Walter H.E. Jaeger ed., 3d ed. 1968) (eviction of tenant precludes recovery for damages for loss of lease); see Chrisalis Properties, Inc. v. Separate Quarters, Inc., 101 N.C. App. 81, 86, 398 S.E.2d 628, 632 (1990) (evicted tenant responsible for unpaid rent due at time of actual eviction plus damages for occupation of premises after cessation of lease estate), disc. rev. denied, 328 N.C. 570, 403 S.E.2d 509 (1991).
Thus the landlord was not entitled to any damages after 2 May 1988, the date of the eviction, and the judgment of the trial court must be reversed. I would not therefore reach the res judicata issue raised by the tenant and addressed by the majority.