Florida Appellate Court Reinstates Jury Verdict Against Lawyers Who Breached Lease

This is really a property case, but I can’t resist a case about Floridians acting crazy. Two attorneys, William and Aimee Hefley, entered into a five-year lease of a home owned by Chistopher Holmquist. Towards the end of the lease term, the Hefleys sought to terminate the lease. Mr. Holmquist refused to terminate, but they moved out in July 2016, with eight months remaining on the lease.  When Mr. Holmquist tried to enter the premises, he discovered that the Hefleys had changed the locks. Mr. Holmquist eventually installed new locks and staged the house with some furniture so that he could find a new tenant. He also sheltered there for a couple of nights to escape the expected path of a hurricane.

A jury found for Mr. Holmquist and awarded him about $22,000 in damages. The trial judge knocked that down to $6000, representing only Mr. Holmquist’s lost rent payments and not the full damages to the premises. Both parties appealed. in Hefley v. Holmquist, a three-judge panel of Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal remanded with instructions to the trial court to  reinstate the jury verdict. Two did so in a one-page opinion, simply stating that there was ample evidence to support the jury’s verdict.

Judge Kilbane (left) appended her concurrence, explaining why the jury was justified in the circumstances. A reasonable jury could conclude, based on the facts  presented, that Mr. Holmquist chose to “stand by and do nothing” in response to the Hefleys having vacated the premises. In this context, that’s a good thing. Sure, landlords cannot ordinarily change the locks without providing the tenants with keys. Here, however, because the Hefleys had changed the locks and had not provided Mr. Holmquist with keys, he had no choice but to install new locks in order “to maintain and repair the premises.” He was permitted to do so under the relevant statute. 

His action in listing the property did not constitute a resumption of possession of the property. Mr. Holmquist properly did not seek to recover rent for the period beginning when he sold the property on February 1, 2017. The fact that he staged the property and stayed in it for a couple of nights is inconclusive as evidence of repossession.

And so, nearly nine years after they vacated the property, the Hefleys will have to pay $22,000, perhaps with some interest. It seems that they are both criminal lawyers. Part of me wants to say that I hope they represented themselves in the action, because otherwise they probably owe a lot in attorneys fees. The opinion indicates that they had some help, at least on the appeal. Somewhere along the line, it seems that somebody in their circle ought to have advised them that they could have made things a lot easier for all involved by settling.