Enforcement of Lease Restriction v. Competing Business in Same Shopping Center
Penn Mart Supermarkets, Inc. v. New Castle Shopping LLC, download file, is a factually intensive case that involved a claim that the landlord and another tenant of a shopping center breached a covenant in a lease that prohibited other tenants from selling certain types of products that would compete with the Penn Mart Supermarket. Although the court granted an injunction, preventing the breach of the restrictive covenant, due to a failure to prove damages, it only awarded nominal damages of $1.00. It also rejected the defense of "legal impracticability" based on a bankruptcy court order which authorized the assignment of the lease to the offending tenant, on the basis that the bankruptcy order did not amend the terms of the lease of the party that sought to enforce its restrictive covenant.
