A legal spat over who can serve rice in the food court of a Providence mall has cost the owner of a Chinese food stand $250,000 in lawyers’ fees so far. [Boston Globe]
A legal spat over who can serve rice in the food court of a Providence mall has cost the owner of a Chinese food stand $250,000 in lawyers’ fees so far. [Boston Globe]
4 Comments
I did not have enough time to RTFA, but why are the two restaurants suing one another? Should the issue not be with the leasor?
The over $250,000 that the owner of the chinese food stand paid to his lawyer is much more money than he could ever make from rice sales in years. Wow is that out of proportion (but that’s what happens when you try to hire lawyers for something). He would have been $250,000 richer had he never hired the lawyer and instead let anyone who wanted to sell rice sell it.
I would think that these two would bury the hatchet and go after the landlord who wrote faulty leases.
Bob
The gist of this suit stems from a rational business decision on the part of the first guy to get a lease in a food court / strip mall.
Take, for example, a strip mall where someone wants to open a coffee shop. The primary product for such a shop is espresso and espresso based beverages. Wouldn’t the smart, independent coffee shop owner insist on a clause in his lease that the lessor prohibit, as a term of the leases to other future lessees in the same complex, that they not be allowed to sell any espresso or espresso based products? After all, if Starbucks could open right next to you, or a drive through stand could go in out at the edge of the parking lot, why the heck would you reasonably choose to open a coffee shop in that particular location?
Now, that said……..in this PARTICTULAR case…..dang….way over the edge. Rice? Come on….there’s a big difference between another Chinese resturant and an Indian place selling white rice as part of their traditional menu. And to let it run to the point of 250K in expenses is just plain stupid.