The Ponist Law Group represented a school serving special needs students against lessor attempting to terminate school’s lease. After a bench trial, the judge rejected lessor’s efforts to terminate the lease early and, instead, awarded the school an extension of its lease.
A judge has ruled an Allied Gardens school, which caters to special needs students, will be able to stay at its location until 2021, despite objections from the San Diego Unified School District.
In May, Excelsior Academy filed a lawsuit against the SDUSD, claiming the district violated the terms of the school’s lease when it told administrators to vacate their location by March 2018.
The SDUSD sold the property to the Islamic School of San Diego for $2,775,000 in February.
“The reason the school district did not want Excelsior to stay in the property longer, as far as we understand it, is that they received a notice from the Islamic School of San Diego requesting that we be thrown out, or Excelsior be thrown out,” said Sean Ponist, the attorney for Excelsior.
Commercial Investment Real Estate Magazine (May/June, 2015)
Sep 16, 2015, San Francisco Bar Association
A presentation addressing legal issues that arise when real estate agents “go rogue” and engage in conduct which may or may not be within the “scope of their employment.”
Real Estate Quarterly Supplement to the Daily Journal (April 27, 2011)
This article discusses the recent Greenwich decision which has opened the door to the recovery of lost profits, but just slightly. As explained in the article, “Aggrieved investors should seek lost profits, but need to be mindful that courts are still skeptical of lost profits damages and will not allow them where even remotely uncertain or speculative.”
“In many transactions, the seller requires that the buyer pay earnest money in the form of a non-refundable deposit. The deposit is one way the buyer can communicate to the seller that he or she really means business. Indeed, such deposits have for years been commonplace. Recently, however, the court of appeal ruled that a non-refundable deposit is in reality a form of liquidated damages and voided the practice despite the clear contractual documents that called for it…”.
San Francisco Daily Journal (August 5, 2010)
“The law is clear that a party is entitled to seek equitable indemnity against negligence claims alleged against it. Similarly, the law is clear that a party is not entitled to indemnity against fraud, intentional torts and other torts for which the application of indemnity would violate public policy. But the law is much less clear as to a party’s right to indemnity for negligent misrepresentation, a cause of action which straddles the line between negligence and fraud. Although the issue arises frequently between joint tortfeasors, the appellate courts have yet to address it. In their silence, trial courts have been all over the map…”