## Facts

- Kenneth O. Lambert and his wife, Verna Lambert, signed a three-year residential lease for an apartment owned/managed by Sam Lefrak (doing business as Mandalay Leasing Co.) in Queens, New York, at $258 per month, with a security deposit of about $502.
- The lease included a provision stating that, upon tenant default, the landlord could recover rent “without any duty” to mitigate damages or relet the apartment.
- The Lamberts took possession on September 15, 1973, and moved out on November 20, 1974, when they were two months behind on rent.
- The security deposit was approximately equal to the two months of unpaid rent, effectively covering the arrears at move-out.
- After the tenants vacated, the apartment remained vacant for about seventeen months, until it was re-rented on May 1, 1976; the lease term was scheduled to run through September 30, 1976.
- Lefrak sued in the Civil Court of the City of New York (Queens County) for $4,552 in unpaid rent and $910 in attorneys’ fees, totaling $5,462.
- In the Civil Court proceedings, liability was not seriously disputed; the dispute centered on damages and whether the landlord could recover rent for the lengthy vacancy period without showing efforts to re-rent.
- The trial court found that Lefrak did not prove a good-faith attempt to re-rent this specific apartment during the vacancy period, despite presenting general proof of leasing activity within the larger apartment complex.

## Issues

1. After residential tenants vacate before the end of a lease term, must the landlord make reasonable, good-faith efforts to re-rent the premises to reduce damages?
2. Can a lease clause stating the landlord has “no duty to mitigate damages or relet” eliminate any mitigation requirement in this residential context?
3. If the landlord does not prove good-faith re-rental efforts, what is the proper measure of rent damages for the post-vacancy period?

## Decision

- The court held that, in the setting of a residential lease, the landlord must make reasonable, good-faith efforts to re-rent after the tenants abandon the apartment, applying contract-style limits on avoidable damages.
- The court declined to give effect to the lease provision purporting to relieve the landlord of any duty to mitigate, treating that boilerplate term as insufficient to justify charging tenants for avoidable vacancy losses.
- The court found Lefrak failed to prove specific, good-faith efforts to re-rent the Lamberts’ apartment and concluded that leaving the unit vacant for seventeen months was unreasonable.
- The court limited the landlord’s recovery to rent for a short, reasonable re-rental period (set at three months), with appropriate credits (including the security deposit), substantially reducing the amount sought.

## Legal Principles

- Residential leases may be treated as contracts for purposes of measuring damages, so the nonbreaching party may not recover losses that could have been avoided through reasonable efforts.
- A landlord seeking post-abandonment rent must show reasonable, good-faith attempts to re-rent the particular premises; generalized evidence of advertising or overall leasing at a complex may be insufficient without proof tied to the unit at issue.
- A lease clause stating the landlord has no duty to mitigate will not necessarily control in a residential setting where the court applies contract-based limits on avoidable damages.
- When the landlord does not prove reasonable re-rental efforts, rent damages may be limited to a reasonable vacancy period rather than the entire balance of the lease term.
- A factfinder may draw an adverse inference when a party fails to produce available witnesses or records within its control on a material point, such as unit-specific re-rental efforts.

## Conclusion

Lefrak v. Lambert (Civil Ct. Queens County) treated a residential lease breach as triggering contract-style limits on damages, held the landlord had to make good-faith efforts to re-rent despite a no-mitigation clause, and—because the landlord did not prove unit-specific re-letting efforts—limited recovery to rent for a short reasonable vacancy period rather than the full remaining term.


Lefrak v. Lambert, 390 N.Y.S.2d 959 (1976)