I’m no lawyer, but this sounds like massive judicial overreach. What legal principle could justify this ruling?
Progressive communist judges do not need legal principles. They make them up on the fly according to how they feel.
Its not an overreach.
He wants the taxpayer to cover the losses of Starbucks.
Overreach? how can you suggest that for a moment. Just another corrupt obamanite judge doing reverse justice.
Unless there is something in the lease there is none.
The courts should enforce actual contracts, not contracts people wished they had signed.
This goes double for the Constitution and why we should give progressivism the heave ho down to the FDR era.
It's the ancient, (dis)honorable principle of "I'm a JUDGE, dammit! I can do anything I bloody well please! Grovel before me, peasant!"
The decline of the American Republic began when we abandoned the practice of tar and feathers.
You might want to take a look at the Federal Law regarding the closing or the substantial reductions in force by businesses. I worked for a company that was being sold to one of it’s major investors which was a foreign entity. Their plan was to move manufacturing out of the US and into idle factories in it’s own country. This meant a wholesale loss of jobs in the US. By reason of the numbers of people who were going to be displaced, Federal Law mandated certain processes and financial consideration to minimize the negative effect on the laid off workers.
Legal principle? From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Starbucks can afford it, the mall operator can’t. That is where the judge is coming from. Pure #!+&%$= communism.
“What legal principle could justify this ruling?”
Sounds like Starbucks was trying to break its lease. So the ruling doesn’t sound all that unreasonable.
“Simon argues that if Starbucks is allowed to “prematurely” break its lease, it could be forced to fill the vacancies with “less creditworthy tenant(s)” or less desirable tenants “who will only agree to less desirable lease terms, and/or a shorter-term lease,” according to the court filings.”
I agree 100%.
Insights welcome.
The legal principles that support the ruling are not that complicated or overreaching: Under most commercial leases, the tenant must pay rent through the end of the lease term even if the tenant vacates the premises, and therefore, the Starbucks will have to pay rent regardless of whether it stays or vacates the premises. I suspect, however, that the shopping mall owner argued that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and if Starbucks vacates the premises, its departure could have a ripple effect that causes other the tenants to leave and/or depresses the rental value of the property, for which it has no adequate remedy of law. Thus, the shopping mall owner probably asked the court for specific performance of the lease to require Starbucks to remain in the premises.
The legal principle -- "specific performance" -- is actually an equitable remedy that traces it roots to 16th Century English Common Law. For nearly five hundred years, judicial systems that have roots in the English common law have had the discretion to fashion equitable remedies to do justice, when the legal remedy of damages is insufficient to make a party whole. The key element is a balancing of the equities to determine which party to the dispute is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of equitable relief.
In the particular case, the judge, in balancing the equities, probably determined that the harm to Starbucks to remain in the premises is relatively small compared to the harm that the shopping mall owner is likely to suffer if Starbucks vacates the premises because Starbucks must pay rent through the end of the lease term either way. Although I am not saying that I agree with the court's decision, I am saying there legal and equitable principles that support the decision.
“I’m no lawyer, but this sounds like massive judicial overreach. What legal principle could justify this ruling?”
I’m not either, but it sounds like it might be about the lease agreement, and Starbucks terminating it early. I guess it would depend on the language in the lease.