What Does “Renovate” Mean to You? (A Perfect Question for Those, Like Me, Addicted to HGTV)

I‘m blogging this case because I had a whole conversation with non-lawyer friends about what the term “renovate” means, and I think maybe they changed my mind about what “renovate” means. I don’t know. Upon first reading this case, I spent a lot of time reflecting on all the episode of “House Hunters Renovations” I’ve watched and what actually happens in them. 

Anyway, if you want to go away and watch a marathon of “House Hunters Renovation” at this point, it’s okay. I understand. This blog post will still be here for you to contemplate afterward. 

The case in question (there is an actual case) is a recent case out of Pennsylvania, Blackburn v. King Investment Group, No. 2409 EDA 2016, and, as you may have guessed, the debate in the case was over the meaning of the word “renovate” in the contract. One party maintained that the term was ambiguous, because it could have required them to demolish the bathrooms at issue or merely to do what was necessary to bring them up to modern standards (which was less than full demolition). The other party argued that it was not an ambiguous term and clearly required demolition. 

The court agreed that it was a clear and unambiguous term that required demolition and replacement, and this was what got me to thinking: Do I think that renovation requires demolition? At first my kneejerk reaction was like, “I don’t know, I don’t think it does.” But after conversations with people, I decided maybe it does mean demolition? That doing something less than demolition wouldn’t be called renovation but just updating? If you say you’re going to renovate your kitchen, does that always imply that you’re demolishing the entire kitchen? If you do less than that, is saying you renovated your kitchen misleading? 

My struggling with the word leads me to believe maybe it’s not clear and unambiguous but I often feel that way with these types of cases. What I find extra-striking about this case is that, while the court proclaimed the term “clear and unambiguous,” it did so by relying entirely on parol evidence, and this parol evidence, in my view, just determined what the parties understood “renovation” to mean. I think finding what renovation meant in the context of this contract to these parties makes a lot more sense than declaring it to be a clear and unambiguous term generally.