Bellevue Properties, LLC., v. United Retail Incorporate, et al.

This case concerns the burden placed on a commercial landlord in mitigating damages caused by a commercial tenant’s abandonment of the leased property. Although our courts heretofore have required a landlord who suffers breach to use reasonable commercial methods to reduce his damages, this tenant-in-breach would read two additional duties into those reasonable commercial methods. First, the tenant would require that the abandoned property be marketed specially and apart from the landlord’s other commercial space inventory. Second, the landlord would be required to market the property at the original contract rental rather than its going market value. Under the facts as established in the record and according to the common law of this jurisdiction, we disagree.