Court Opinion

ID: 9667468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:46:21.524352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:38.118642
License: Public Domain

NORVELL, Justice
(dissenting).
The trial judge made full and complete findings of fact which are not challenged by points of error on this appeal. In my opinion these findings fully support the judgment rendered and I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
As against the trial court’s findings and conclusions which culminated in a holding that there was no surrender of the Tower-Flack lease, it is urged that the insertion of a ninety-day cancellation clause in the subsequent Van Zandt lease resulted in a surrender of the prior lease as a matter of law.
“A surrender of a lease by operation of law results from acts which imply mutual consent independent of the expressed intention of the parties that their acts shall have that effect; it is by way of estoppel.” 32 Am.Jur. 766, Landlord & Tenant, § 905. Estoppel is a doctrine of chancery and hence controlled by equitable principles. The appellants in this case breached the rental agreement. By so doing they placed the burden upon appellee to recoup the loss thus occasioned as best it could in accordance with the provisions of the contract. While the exercise of the ninety-day option in the Van Zandt lease and a sale of the premises might result in an acceptance of a surrender of the Tower-Flack lease, it seems that the mere presence of such a clause in the subsequent lease should not have that effect if equitable principles be applied. After all, the landlord in this case is not the party in default. It was confronted with the threat of economic loss occasioned by a broken lease contract and should be permitted to take reasonable steps to protect itself. The cancellation clause employed here was not unreasonable under the circumstances. Its insertion in the lease did not constitute an act of bad faith. In fact it is not shown to what extent, if any, the presence of this clause in the lease lessened the value of the Van Zandt lease to the tenant. Surrender is, after all, fundamentally a doctrine of mutual consent and we should be wary of giving legal effect to acts which are clearly against the intention of at least one of the contracting parties.
I have found no authority holding that a cancellation clause in a second lease operates as a surrender of a prior lease as a matter of law and would not so hold in this case.