According to Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra (May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015), late of Montclair, New Jersey, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” That’s how we get our “experience” – by watching what we ourselves have done and by what others have done. We can learn from those experiences, “ours” and “theirs.” That’s one reason we read court decisions. Doing so allows us to safely observe what others have done without getting burned, even when the situations covered by these decisions invoke another Yogiism: “It’s deja vu all over again.”
We came across a late August court decision out of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. It involved a lease dispute at an enclosed mall, one emblematic of the history of such malls. At 300,000 square feet, it opened in 1970 with 32 inline tenants and two department stores as anchors. By 1982, one had disappeared and its parent company soon followed. The following year, a national retailer relocated its own department store from downtown to the now-vacant space. In the mid-1990s, plans were made to expand the mall, based in part on the addition of a third department store building. Some physical impediments delayed those plans and then the contemplated additional department store chain was acquired by yet another. This resulted in a further delay. But, the mall’s expansion opened in 2000, and the mall grew to 700,000 square feet of space. [Read more…]
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We think we’ve found an example that will illustrate one of our long time contentions – we need to skeptically re-read our documents and ask “why” with every line. We need to ask: “Why did we write that? What does it add to the document?” It might be safe to skim right over the “gender” clause, but equally “humdrum, boring” sentences and clauses really need attention.
The third (or the fifth) most used word in English is “and.” We looked at one of our “comprehensive” lease forms, one with 32,815 words and found that 1,775 (5.4%) of its words are “and.” We looked at a “national” Loan and Security Agreement (55,104 words) and found that “and” made up 3.3% of its words (1,820 of them). So, it’s about time we looked at this word. One thing for sure is that it is a “conjunction,” that “part of speech” covering words that join phrases. (A minor usage is as a noun. Witness: “He accepted the job, no ifs, ands or buts about it.”)
“Notwithstanding,” is the draftsperson’s blanket cure to gaps or deficiencies in a document. It is an efficient, fast way to deal with an exception to a generality. As such, sentences beginning with this magic word are useful. They enable us to employ overbroad clauses because “notwithstanding” pulls our language back for the exceptions we have thought about. In other words, carefully written, they achieve the desired purpose.
Last week, we wrote about a court decision interpreting a lease’s poorly written force majeure clause. If you missed it, click: 
We’ve all seen, or perhaps been assaulted by, a surfeit of articles about force majeure clauses and how all of our agreements should include one. Other pundits have gotten way ahead of this one by explaining how we will have a better world if the advice to include such clauses would be taken by all. They’ve noted that very few agreements with a force majeure provision have covered the kind of closures we have experienced and are still experiencing. But, what we’ve not seen is much understanding that there is nothing special about a “force majeure” clause: it is no more than another risk-shifting device. What differentiates these provisions from co-tenancy or fire damage provisions is that force majeure clauses don’t know in advance how a particular risk will manifest itself. Even though some speak of “labor disputes,” “acts of G-d,” “public enemies,” etc., they invariably end with: “or other events beyond the control of a party” or some such. Without getting into the rules of contract interpretation, we’ll simply note that this teaches that these clauses are intended to relieve one party or the other of an obligation if something beyond the control of the obligated party prevents performance. 
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