## Facts

- A commercial tenant leased a building from the landlord under a five-year lease beginning June 1, 1972, and operated a mail-order business there.
- Without informing the tenant or obtaining consent, the landlord separately leased the roof to an outdoor advertising company for installation of a large rooftop sign.
- The advertiser hired a contractor to build a steel support structure; construction involved making holes in the building’s walls and roof and partially installing the support structure.
- The tenant sued the landlord and the sign-related companies seeking injunctive and monetary relief.
- At a hearing (without the landlord present), the tenant and the advertiser stipulated that installation could proceed after recommended structural modifications; advertiser rent payable to the landlord was to be held in escrow until rights to that rent were determined.
- Before trial, the tenant filed an amended complaint against the landlord alone, including an unjust-enrichment claim.
- The tenant alleged business interruption for about one month, loss of storage space, and interference with quiet enjoyment, and it incurred an engineer’s fee to address structural safety concerns.

## Issues

1. Whether the landlord was unjustly enriched by collecting rent from a third-party rooftop-sign lease when the building was leased to the tenant and the landlord had not retained a right to separately exploit the roof.
2. Whether equity permitted awarding the tenant a portion of the rooftop-sign rent and reimbursement of an engineer’s fee necessitated by the sign installation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed the trial court’s use of unjust enrichment as the basis for relief and modified the judgment in details of the monetary award.
- The court held that the landlord’s receipt of rooftop-sign rent could constitute an unjust benefit tied to the tenant’s leasehold and the burdens imposed on the tenant.
- The court upheld restitutionary recovery connected to the sign rent and approved awarding the engineer’s fee as an expense fairly chargeable to the landlord under equitable principles.

## Legal Principles

- Unjust enrichment permits restitution when (1) the defendant receives a benefit, (2) retention of the benefit is unjust, and (3) equity requires payment to the plaintiff.
- A landlord who, without a retained contractual right, separately leases part of leased premises to a third party for additional rent may be required to disgorge all or part of that benefit to the tenant whose possessory interest supports the value and who bears resulting burdens.
- A tenant’s necessary safety-related expenditures caused by a landlord’s unilateral, profit-motivated alteration of the premises may be recoverable in restitution when the expenditures protect the landlord’s property interest or are otherwise equitably attributable to the landlord.
- In allocating restitution (including any division of third-party rent), the court acts in equity; the measure is not limited to contract damages and may reflect the relationship between the landlord’s gain and the tenant’s burdens.

## Conclusion

The court treated the landlord’s third-party rooftop-sign rent as a potentially unjust benefit derived from use of the leased premises and permitted equitable restitution to the tenant, including a share of that rent and reimbursement of necessary engineering costs caused by the landlord’s unauthorized exploitation of the roof.


Monarch Accounting Supplies, Inc. v. Prezioso, 170 Conn. 659 (1976)