Here’s another summary of a recent case I’m adding to California Landlord-Tenant Practice (CEB:
In Gould v. Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (2011) 192 CA4th 1176, 120 CR3d 943, a commercial lease contained an “anti-waiver” provision, which said that the landlord’s acceptance of less than the full amount of rent shall not be a waiver of his right to the remainder of the rent. The parties agreed that the tenant could terminate early by paying $136,500. The tenant paid $120,000, telling the landlord to take the balance from the tenant’s security deposit. The landlord kept the $120,000, then claimed that the tenant’s effort to terminate early was ineffective, because the tenant had no right to require the landlord to use the security deposit, and the anti-waiver provision gave the landlord the right to keep the $120,000 and still be owed the remaining $16,500. The court held that by failing to return the $120,000, the landlord had waived the anti-waiver provision, and therefore rejected the landlord’s assertion that the early termination was ineffective. “For Gould to keep the money and claim it does not constitute waiver is absurd, not to mention unconscionable.”