## Facts

- A commercial tenant leased two floors in Manhattan to operate a multiplex movie theater under a long-term lease running from 1998 to 2016.
- The lease permitted landlord entry for repairs and improvements and stated rent would not abate during such work; it also disclaimed landlord liability for business inconvenience caused by repairs or improvements.
- In December 2002, the landlord entered the premises without the tenant’s notice or consent and installed steel floor-to-ceiling cross-bracing on each of the tenant’s two floors in preparation for a building expansion.
- The bracing occupied about 12 square feet of an estimated 15,000–19,000 square feet leased.
- The installation slightly altered lobby traffic flow and reduced waiting-area space; the tenant alleged reduced functionality, aesthetics, and visibility.
- The tenant stopped paying rent, sought removal of the bracing, a declaration of actual partial eviction, total rent abatement during the alleged eviction, and damages.

## Issues

1. Whether a landlord’s minimal physical encroachment into leased commercial space constitutes an actual partial eviction that excuses the tenant from paying all rent.
2. Whether the rent-suspension remedy for actual partial eviction applies when the intrusion has no demonstrable, non-trivial effect on the tenant’s use and enjoyment.
3. What remedy is appropriate for a small, unauthorized intrusion that causes, at most, slight interference.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the outcome below and held the tenant was not excused from paying rent.
- The court held that a trifling or minimal intrusion that does not interfere in a more than trivial manner with the tenant’s use and enjoyment is not an actual partial eviction triggering total rent abatement.
- The court treated damages, not complete rent suspension, as the proper remedy where a small intrusion causes measurable harm; here, the tenant proved no actual damages.

## Legal Principles

- Actual partial eviction can relieve a tenant of all rent only when the landlord’s physical retaking is more than trivial and meaningfully interferes with the tenant’s use and enjoyment.
- The de minimis doctrine limits the actual partial eviction rule; the law does not provide total rent abatement for inconsequential intrusions without demonstrable effect.
- Whether an intrusion constitutes an actual partial eviction depends on the nature and degree of interference, not merely the fact of unauthorized physical occupation.
- When interference is minimal but produces provable loss, the appropriate remedy is damages rather than complete rent abatement.

## Conclusion

A landlord’s unauthorized encroachment into leased premises does not automatically constitute an actual partial eviction; only a non-trivial physical retaking that materially interferes with use and enjoyment can suspend the entire rent obligation.


Eastside Exhibition Corp. v. 210 E. 86th St. Corp., 18 N.Y.3d 617 (2012)