Richardson v. La Rancherita, Inc.
California Court of Appeal
159 Cal. Rptr. 285 (1979)
- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
La Rancherita, Inc. (defendant) leased restaurant space to Breg (plaintiff). Breg sought to sell its interest in the restaurant to Norman Bomze, including an assignment of the lease. The lease contained a provision requiring La Rancherita’s consent for Breg to assign the lease and for anyone to occupy the space contrary to the lease’s terms. La Rancherita refused to give its consent to the assignment to Bomze absent a renegotiation resulting in increased rent and other changes. In light of this, Breg and Bomze restructured their deal, with Breg officially staying on as the tenant under the lease but Breg’s shareholders selling their shares in Breg to Bomze. After learning of this plan, La Rancherita threatened to foreclose on the lease. Ultimately, the sale of Breg’s stock closed, but over a month after it was supposed to. Breg sued La Rancherita for intentional interference with contractual relations. La Rancherita argued that it was acting in good faith on advice of counsel that its consent was needed for the sale. The trial court ruled in Breg’s favor. La Rancherita appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Wiener, J.)
Dissent (Staniforth, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 832,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,500 briefs, keyed to 994 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
