Court:
Judge: Mills
Subject: Municipal law
Tone: Befuddlement-inducing
Importance: 1.2
Okay. We’re about to get hypertechnical and then confused. Be warned.
The Suffolk County Sheriff tried to enter into a ten year, $7 million lease for office space. In order for the lease to be enforceable, the City of
This lease incorporated the following imprimatur from the auditor’s office: “APPROVED AS TO AVAILABILITY OF APPROPRIATION OR PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 12.2 OF THE GENERAL CONDITIONS IN THE AMOUNT OF $0.00.”
Pardon? $0.00?
And so, of course, the Sheriff broke the lease and the landlord sued. And the landlord, of course, lost. Because, as the
This may just be what happens when turnout is fourteen percent.
1 comment:
When the Sheriff's Department terminated the lease, it didn't do so because of the missing auditor's certification. It terminated for a much more pedestrian reason: the landlord had not completed construction work required under the lease within the time permitted. The landlord had a creative lawyer who argued, the first time the case went up on appeal in 2004, that in light of a statute applicable only to Boston and Suffolk County contracts, the time for construction had not begun to run until the mayor approved the contract, which, if true, would mean that the Sheriff's termination was untimely and improper.
Only on remand did the Sheriff's Department raise the statute's requirement of an auditor's certification. So the landlord was hoist by its own petard.
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