OHIO Frenchtown tried to fill vacancy in Mich. center, high court rules

The decision sent the case back to Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
By MICHELE C. HLADIK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- Commercial landlords must make every effort to replace tenants who breach lease agreements before a lawsuit to reclaim damages can be filed, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled.
The high court unanimously decided Wednesday that Youngstown-based Frenchtown Square Partnership had made every effort to fill a vacancy in its Monroe, Mich., shopping center after a Christian bookstore closed up shop with six months left on its lease.
"If Frenchtown did not take reasonable steps to relet its Frenchtown Square property following Lemstone's abandonment, then it contributed to the problem it asks us to prevent," Justice Maureen O'Connor wrote.
According to court documents, Frenchtown waited until the six-month period expired and filed a lawsuit against Lemstone, a Chicago-based Christian Bookstore. The suit was aimed at collecting unpaid rent, fees and taxes for that six-month period.
Representation
Youngstown attorney Donn Rosenblum represented Lemstone. He said he believes the lawsuit was for more than $40,000.
But the Supreme Court's decision remanded the case back to the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court and ordered the court to determine if Frenchtown took reasonable efforts to mitigate the amount of financial damages caused by the breach in the lease. The lower court was also ordered to determine the amount of damages.
"Although relatively few jurisdictions have expressly determined a commercial lessor's duty, the trend favors Lemstone," Justice O'Connor wrote.
"Lessees are potentially liable for rents coming due under the agreement as long as the property remains unrented," Justice O'Connor wrote. "The important corollary to that is that landlords have a duty, as all parties to contracts do, to mitigate their damages caused by a breach. Landlords mitigate by attempting to re-rent the property. Their efforts to do so must be reasonable, and the reasonableness should be determined at the trial level."
But Justice O'Connor added, the lessor did not have to take any new tenant to make a reasonable effort to reduce the financial damages.
"We emphasize that our holding does not require a lessor to accept just any available lessee," she wrote. "The duty to mitigate requires only reasonable efforts. Thus, the tenant mix may reasonably factor into a lessor's decisions to relet."
Frenchtown was represented by David Fantauzzi of Youngstown, who did not return repeated phone calls to comment.
Rosenblum said he was pleased with the court's decision.