On November 25, 2014, Luper Neidenthal & Logan attorneys won an important decision in the Ohio 10th District Court of Appeals in a hotly-contested, high dollar value (millions) commercial lease case wherein each of LNL’s client’s assignments of error were sustained. The important holdings of the decision are: (1) that a dissolving corporation’s Wind Up Agreement and Plan of Complete Liquidation cannot form the basis of an equitable lease assignment under a third-party beneficiary theory, (2) that holdover rent checks alone do not memorialize the existence of a memorandum of assignment of lease, and (3) that holdover rent checks and occupancy, while trying to negotiate a new lease, do not constitute part performance so at to remove an alleged implied lease assignment from the operation of the statute of frauds.
This decision represents an important addition to existing Ohio jurisprudence in the commercial leasing area.