Chief Justice Arthur Ngiraklsong, Associate Justice Lourdes F. Materne and Associate Justice Alexandra F. Foster in an eight pages opinion order affirmed the trial court’s ruling denying a landlord’s Yukio M. Shmull’s claim against tenant Mark Doran.
However the Justices also reversed the trial court’s ruling when it denied the landlord’s claims for back rent against the tenant.The Supreme Court directed the trial court to award damages in the amount of $450 to the landlord.The Justices said the $450 damages should be paid by tenant to the landlord for rent for the month of October 2001.Shmull filed an appeal when the trial court granted Doran’s counterclaim and argued that the trial court erred in denying his claims for back rent for the subsequent five years.The trial court found that Doran effectively terminated the rental lease in October 2001.The trial court also determined that the landlord was not entitled to back rent for the subsequent five years simply because some of the tenant’s personal property remained in the unit after he vacated it in November 2001.The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling and agreed with its findings that leaving the furniture and possessing a key to the unit did not rescind the termination of the contract by the tenant nor did these facts entitle the landlord to charge rent from the tenant.The Justices said the landlord has no option of withholding the tenant’s property as collateral and continuing to charge rent.The Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that the landlord is not entitled to back rent for the months that tenant’s possessions remained in the unit after the court’s order directing the tenant to remove them.The Justices agreed with the trial court’s findings that the tenant was entitled to reasonable damages to his furniture because they were improperly held by the landlord as a remedy for nonpayment of rent.The Justices however reversed the trial court’s ruling on the issue of whether the landlord is entitled to back rent for the month of October 2001.The Supreme Court said that there were sufficient proof offered by both parties at trial that tenant continued to occupy the rental unit during the month of October 2001.Although the tenant terminated the lease that month, as a matter of equity, he should have to pay rent for that month.“The $500 payment in March 2002 only covered the rent for the month of September 2001. It was error to find that there was insufficient proof of rent owed for the month of October 2001. The trial court is directed to award the landlord $450 in damages for that month only,”the Supreme Court said in an order yesterday.The landlord and the tenant entered into a one-year lease on February 26, 1998. The tenant paid rent monthly until September 2001 when he became deficient on his rent.In October 2001, the parties had discussion regarding terminating the lease. The tenant believed that his lease was already terminated and moved out of the office by November 2001.The landlord refused to allow the tenant to remove his personal property from the unit because he did not pay rent for the months of September and October.The tenant paid the landlord $500 in March 2002 but the landlord continued to withhold the properties.In October 2002, the landlord filed a complaint against the tenant seeking $4, 439 in back rent. The tenant filed counterclaimed for damages to his personal property locked in the office for a year.
