Court Opinion

ID: 9790244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:49:32.311291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:47:13.241019
License: Public Domain

BERMAN, Judge,
dissenting in part.
I respectfully dissent from Part I of the majority opinion, and from Part II insofar as it awards attorney’s fees incurred on this appeal.
The majority concludes that the lease language permitting the landlord, upon breach by tenant, to “re-enter and re-let the premises at such rental and upon such other terms and conditions as landlord in its sole discretion may deem advisable ” (emphasis added by the majority) implicitly obviates *117the landlord’s duty to mitigate damages reasonably. As I read the opinion, the majority concludes that the landlord could have attempted, by virtue of the stated lease language, to re-let at any price, even one much higher than that provided in the lease, and still have been found to have satisfied its duty to mitigate. Such a conclusion is tantamount to saying that there was no duty to mitigate reasonably, but rather, that an attempt to re-let at an arbitrary price would suffice.
I cannot accept the majority’s position. I believe that the cited lease language means exactly what it says and no more. And, even if there were uncertainty of meaning, such uncertainty would be resolved against the lessor as the party who drafted the language. See Perl-Mack Enterprises Co. v. City and County of Denver, 194 Colo. 4, 568 P.2d 468 (1977). Therefore, the language in question simply permitted the landlord to “re-enter and re-let” on any terms of the landlord’s choosing. It did not say, contrary to what is implied by the majority, that a mere attempt by the landlord to exercise its rights under that language would also constitute mitigation of damages. The duty to mitigate reasonably cannot be extinguished merely by permissive language granting a landlord the right to “re-enter and re-let.”
In this case, it is undisputed that the duty to mitigate existed in the first instance.1 The landlord as much as conceded the same in a letter to the tenant dated June 8, 1977: “You will, therefore, be advised that [landlord] intends to hold [tenant] responsible for ... damages that they [landlord] incur as a result of their attempt to mitigate their damages .... ” (emphasis added). And, as has been shown, nothing obviated the landlord’s obligation to undertake reasonable efforts to discharge its duty.
The question, therefore, is whether the landlord met that obligation. As to that issue, the trial court expressly found:
The evidence is ultimately clear in this case that there was no effort by the landlord to rent the property for the duration of the lease, just to August 1, ’78, for $545 or $400, or some amount to lessen the damages.
Now, if, in fact, the going rent at the time was $12 a square foot, there is at least an inference that they could have rented it for $8 a square foot; so at some point, they should have made the attempt to rent it, which they didn’t do. That’s where I have the problem. I think the rule of law is clear, and I think the evidence is clear.
Those findings are amply supported in the record. I would, therefore, affirm the judgment.

. The trial court, in its findings and conclusions, correctly stated the applicable law:
[T]he general rule is that one who is injured by a breach of contract — and this was a breach of contract — is bound to exercise reasonable care and diligence to avoid loss or to minimize or lessen the resulting damages. They don’t have to eliminate, in other words, the resulting damages. They have to minimize, and in an old case in Colorado, Hoene [sic] Ditch Co. v. John Flood Ditch Co., the Court says — let me give you a cite — 76 Colo. 500 [223 P. 167] — “or the defendant has breached a contract, it is the duty of the injured party to take such reasonable steps as are within his power to reduce the damages” — not eliminate, but reduce the damages — ” or to lessen them or to avoid them as a reasonably prudent man would take in like circumstances.”