LANDLORD AND TENANT-LIABILITY OF LESSEE FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT- MEASURE OF DAMAGES

Authors

Abstract

Defendant, lessee under a contract providing for payment of rents monthly in advance, moved out before expiration of the term and gave notice of refusal to comply further with the terms of the lease. Plaintiff, lessor, elected to treat the failure to pay the installment then due as a present breach of the contract and sued for damages. Defendant claimed that the contract had become unilateral after plaintiff's performance in conveying the leasehold which would give grounds for an anticipatory breach which defendant claimed was the theory of plaintiff's action. On defendant's demurrer to the complaint, it was held that the contract to pay rent is a contract to pay money in installments, and the failure to pay the installment then due constituted a partial breach, which when accompanied or followed by defendant's repudiation of the entire contract may be treated as a total breach, for which plaintiff can recover total damages measured by the difference between the amount of the rent reserved for the balance of the term less any sum which plaintiff, if diligent in attempting to re-rent the premises, received as rental for the balance of the term. Sagamore Corp. v. Willcutt, (Conn. 1935) 180 A. 464.

Recommended Citation

LANDLORD AND TENANT-LIABILITY OF LESSEE FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT- MEASURE OF DAMAGES, 34 Mich. L. Rev. 430 (1936).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol34/iss3/20