A Wake Up Call For Commercial Landlords: Caffé Nero and Frustration of Purpose

Old common law doctrines are not dormant and may enable tenants to avoid the payment of rent due to government shutdown orders during the pandemic. As more cases are tried, a jurisprudence regarding these doctrines and their applicability to the pandemic is being developed. In this episode, Mark Johnson, partner and co-chair of Seyfarth’s Real Estate Litigation practice, joins hosts James O’Brien and Eric Greenberg to discuss frustration of purpose and force majeure as applied by the court in UMNV 205-207 Newbury LLC v. Caffé Nero Americas Inc., where a landlord sued its retail tenant for damages in order to recover unpaid rent for the period during which the tenant was closed due to a COVID-19 shutdown order in Massachusetts.