Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Suffolk County Sherriff Weirdness Update Number Two

You may remember several months ago a weird case involving a lease and the Suffolk County Sheriff's office. The idea was that the lease wasn't enforceable because the auditor had approved the lease but not issued a document certifying that there were funds available to make rent payments. There was even a comment, probably by someone involved in the case, that included the landlord being derivatively "hoist by its own petard."

Well, today in Bradston Associates, LLC v. County Sheriff's Department, No. SJC 10139, the SJC issued its own decision in the case. It held, contrary to the Appeals Court, that the lease was enforceable even accounting for the auditor's bizarre certification.

"To hold otherwise," the Court stated, "would sacrifice substance to form and perpetrate an unfairness . . . ." Petard, consider yourself unhoisted.

Decisionism's Newest Reader*


Beatrice Sobel Klein! Born August 15, 2008 at 1:33 a.m.

*Also the reason for recent light posting, along with the lack of interesting stuff happening because everybody is on vacation.