The secondary residence of U.S. President Donald Trump is located in the eponymous skyscraper that bears his name located in an area of Upper Fifth Avenue in New York City, at the apex of the most important and most expensive shopping district in the Western Hemisphere. Prized retail space can be found in the building and in surrounding properties. This is not the typical environment for establishing a security cordon for the protection of the President of the United States.
If President Trump continues to maintain Trump Tower as a secondary residence and working office (as he had done while President-elect), we can surmise that protective and preventative measures that have been in effect for weeks, will continue. Anyone brave enough to attempt to enter the still-cocooned retail spaces will receive a quick course in world-class security. You have to talk your way past federal and local law enforcement officers to get into Gucci, which is in Trump Tower but accessible by the street, to say nothing of what you need to do to get into the building’s atrium for the chance to score a latte at Starbucks. In short, the conversion of Trump Tower into “White House North” has not been good for business for any tenant who is not named Trump.
New York City and State Law
The retail tenants may seek ways to mitigate their losses. The law and most leases, however, are not particularly sympathetic to this type of economic collateral damage, which typically falls under the category of “consequential damages.”
As a general rule, a tenant’s choice of remedies when things go wrong in a lease is to seek an abatement of rent, or to seek to cancel the lease. Lost profits are considered speculative by the courts and are almost never awarded in cases involving commercial leases. Most commercial leases have specific prohibitions against the award of lost profits.
One possible alternate claim would be for what is known as “constructive eviction.” That happens whenever something within a landlord’s control substantially interferes with the use and enjoyment of the leased premises. The catch here is that it has to be something the landlord does or fails to do; in the case of the President, however, the security is not his own but that of the United States government, working closely with the New York City Police Department.
Many leases provide that, if access to the premises is thwarted or impeded by fire or other damage, rent will be abated. For those leases, there could be support for the claim that the extraordinary event of government restraint on access forms the basis for an abatement of rent.
New York courts have held that a party may be relieved from its duty to perform whenever an unforeseen event has occurred that destroys the underlying reasons for performing the contract. The argument that the United States Secret Service and the local police have turned your block into the Maginot Line is not a familiar one, but it could, at least in theory, gain traction if damage is shown to be acute enough.
Finally, there is always a claim against the government—but that is probably pushing it a bit. Whenever property is taken from a private individual by the government under “eminent domain,” there must be payment of just compensation. There is an exception to the rule that provides that there is no compensation when a taking is due to the exercise of “police power.” An example of police power is the right to damage or destroy private property (without compensation to the owner) when such an act is necessary to protect the public interest. If you want to know what that means, watch the next time someone parks an expensive car in front of a fire hydrant when a blaze has started and fire fighters arrive with their axes.
In short, there is no clear way, through the use of litigation, for retailers caught within the security cordon or even just outside it to seek redress. However, the President is nothing if not a deal maker, and as a sage old lawyer once suggested, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” It cannot hurt to contact the landlord and practice your take on “the art of the deal.”
Credits: Steven J. Rabinowitz
Steven is counsel in Phillips Nizer’s Real Estate Law practice.
Elizabeth Ruff, partner, and Tom Morton, associate at Fox Williams LLP, Solicitors (U.K.)
At Fox Williams, Elizabeth advises on a broad range of commercial property transactions, both freehold and leasehold, including property management, investment acquisitions and disposals, secured lending, property finance, general landlord and tenant issues. Tom is a property litigator, and heads up the firm’s Real Estate dispute resolution practice.
Phillips Nizer would like to thank Elizabeth and Tom for providing a non-U.S. perspective on this very interesting, and in this instance, extremely unique and unusual circumstance in real estate law affecting the landlord-tenant relationship.
