## Facts

- Lessors leased a restaurant building to lessees for 24 months beginning November 20, 1981, at $3,250 per month for operation of a seafood restaurant.
- Lessees paid rent through July 1982, then abandoned the premises and notified lessors they could not continue operating the business.
- The lease included an acceleration clause for rent upon default.
- After abandonment, lessors advertised for a new tenant and began renovations to improve rental prospects.
- Lessors then moved into the premises, first operating a limited seafood take-out operation and later occupying the entire premises to run their own seafood business, continuing beyond the original lease term.
- In December 1982, lessors sued to recover accelerated rents, costs, and attorney’s fees.
- The trial court awarded accelerated rent, costs/expenses, and attorney’s fees set at 25%; the court of appeal affirmed the monetary award but remanded for a reasonable attorney-fee determination.
- The Louisiana Supreme Court granted review on whether lessors could both reoccupy for their own business and collect contractual rent for the same period.

## Issues

1. Whether a lessor may occupy abandoned leased premises for its own business for the remainder of the lease term and also collect contractual rent from the lessee for that same period under an acceleration clause.
2. Whether the lessor’s reentry and business use constitutes an election of remedies inconsistent with enforcing the lease for future rent.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Supreme Court held that lessors could not recover rent from lessees for any period after lessors occupied the premises for their own business purposes.
- The Court treated full reoccupation for the lessor’s commercial benefit as inconsistent with enforcing the lease for post-reentry rent, notwithstanding the acceleration clause.
- The judgment was modified to disallow rent recovery for the period after lessors’ business occupancy began, while permitting recovery only up to that date.

## Legal Principles

- When a lessee defaults, the lessor’s principal remedies are: (1) sue to cancel the lease and recover accrued rent, or (2) sue to enforce the lease and recover accrued rent plus accelerated future rent if provided by contract; these remedies are mutually exclusive.
- A lessor’s conduct can constitute an election of remedies; reentering and using the premises for the lessor’s own business benefit is inconsistent with continuing to demand contractual rent from the original lessee for the same time period.
- An acceleration clause does not permit collection of rent for periods in which the lessor has retaken and used the premises for its own purposes in a manner tantamount to termination for rent-recovery purposes.

## Conclusion

A lessor may not “double recover” by retaking abandoned leased property for its own ongoing business use and simultaneously collecting contractual rent (including accelerated rent) from the lessee for the same post-reentry period; once the lessor reoccupies for its own benefit, rent recovery is limited to the period before that occupancy began.


Richard v. Broussard, 495 So. 2d 1291 (La. 1986)