Austin Hill Country Realty, Inc. v. Palisades Plaza, Inc.

948 S.W.2d 293 (1997)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Palisades owned and operated an office complex. Austin Hill executed a five-year commercial offer lease for suite in the Palisades’ office complex. The monthly base rent was $3,128 per month for the first year, $3,519 for the second and third years, and $3.910 for the fourth and fifth. Palisades was also to convert the shell office space into working offices for Austin Hill. Construction on the improvements came to a halt on October 21, 1992, when Palisades got conflicting instructions about the completion of the suite. Palisades informed the parties and indicated it could not continue until one of the parties was designated as the final voice. No one replied to Palisades’ demands. In a letter dated, November 19, 1992, Palisades informed Austin Hill and the principals that their failure to designate a final representative was an anticipatory breach. Palisades then sued Austin Hill and its principals for anticipatory breach of the lease. Hill (D) tried to show at trial that Palisades (P) failed to mitigate its damages in that P rejected an offer to lease the premises from two of the three principals of D. P also rejected an offer from the remaining principal and a new party to lease the office space. P did advertise for new tenants continuously, but it did not advertise in the “Flick Report,” a commercial property publication. D requested an instruction that P’s damages should be reduced for a failure to mitigate. That was rejected by the trial judge. P got the verdict for $29,716 and $16,500 in attorney fees. The court of appeals affirmed.