The landlords of a Honda dealership engaged in “unfair industrial extortion,” fraudulently misrepresented the possession of the property and wrongfully delayed development of the shop for greater than two years, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom has dominated.
The sharply worded choice upheld an award of $10,517,250, plus lawyer charges, in favor of what was then Majestic Honda, which sought to relocate from Rhode Island to Massachusetts. It’s now Balise Honda of North Attleboro.
In 2016, Majestic signed a 23-year lease for the positioning from a gaggle of companies linked with Alfredo Dos Anjos. Beneath the lease, Majestic was to demolish current buildings and construct two new ones. The positioning is close to a CarMax retailer owned by Dos Anjos on town’s “Auto Street,” the choice mentioned.
What occurred was “a bitter and protracted dispute” through which seller principal James Balise was coerced to promote to Dos Anjos for under $1 an adjoining parcel he’d purchased for $800,000, Chief Justice Scott Kafker wrote within the unanimous opinion. He mentioned Dos Anjos additionally gave “pretextual causes” for terminating the lease and “willfully and wrongly strung Majestic alongside as a method to extract undeserved advantages.”
The Jan. 24 choice detailed a collection of steps the Dos Anjos companies took to impede Majestic from getting crucial municipal permits for the undertaking; to strive limiting use of the positioning solely to a Honda retailer, thereby stopping Majestic from housing different manufacturers there; to terminate the lease; and to not reinstate it. The courtroom additionally mentioned the companies deliberately made false statements and “did nothing to appropriate their misrepresentations as to the possession of the premises.”
The lease was reinstated after Majestic received at trial, and development proceeded whereas the Supreme Courtroom attraction was pending.
The shop opened final Might.
“Our dedication has all the time been to serve the North Attleboro neighborhood and our clients,” Balise instructed Automotive Information.
Within the choice, the courtroom mentioned, “The defendants’ conduct — which included fraudulent misrepresentations and pretextual contractual objections designed to string alongside [Majestic] and coerce further concession to which the defendants weren’t entitled beneath the lease — meets the usual for unfair or misleading practices.”
It upheld the trial courtroom’s discovering that the misconduct delayed the event and operation of the shop by greater than two years and mentioned proof of unfair and misleading conduct was adequate to justify the courtroom’s doubling of the compensatory damages.
Protection lawyer Robert Cordy mentioned, “The in depth truth findings made by the trial decide made the attraction of his rulings very difficult.”
Cordy, of Boston, mentioned the case now’s being mediated towards a ultimate settlement.