Ohio court rules landlord must mitigate after restaurant chain walks

An Ohio appeals court has ruled that a commercial landlord cannot sit idle after a tenant walks — it has to try to fill the space. 

On April 9, 2026, the Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eighth Appellate District, handed down a decision, reversing part of a trial court ruling that had let a landlord collect full damages without being required to prove it made reasonable efforts to find a new tenant. 

Here is what happened. Back in 1996, a landlord leased commercial space at 17095 Southpark Center in Strongsville, Ohio, to the operator of a Romano's Macaroni Grill restaurant. Brinker International, Inc., a separate entity that served as the guarantor, signed a guarantee promising to cover the tenant's full performance under the lease. 

That arrangement held for more than two decades. Then, in the summer of 2023, the tenant defaulted, vacated the property, and tendered possession back to the landlord, SPM Acquisition. The lease still had four years left on it, running through June 2027. SPM sued both the tenant and Brinker for breach of contract, seeking unpaid rent and damages. 

A court-approved stipulation and agreed judgment entry filed in November 2024 resolved the claim against the tenant, establishing that the tenant owed SPM $475,411.58, accruing at $15,938.79 per month. SPM then went after Brinker as the guarantor and moved for summary judgment. The trial court agreed, entering a judgment against Brinker for the full amount plus ongoing monthly charges, interest, attorney fees, and costs. The trial court concluded that the lease and guarantee contained language that eliminated SPM's obligation to mitigate – meaning SPM had no duty to try re-leasing the property to reduce damages. 

Brinker appealed, and the appellate court disagreed with the trial court's reading of the contracts. The court examined the lease provisions and found that none of them contained the kind of clear, specific language needed to waive a landlord's duty to mitigate. The lease did not use the words mitigate, mitigation, relet, or reletting in the relevant sections. The court compared the lease to several prior Ohio cases where the mitigation language – whether preserving or eliminating the duty – was spelled out explicitly. In this lease, no such clarity existed. 

The appellate court went further. It found that the lease actually contemplated mitigation by outlining different damage calculations depending on whether the landlord re-leased the property. That is not the language of a contract trying to eliminate mitigation. That is the language of a contract that expects it. 

The court also found a factual dispute over whether SPM's efforts to find a new tenant were reasonable. Both sides had submitted competing affidavits on the issue – SPM from its leasing agent, Brinker from its chief legal officer – and the appellate court ruled that sorting out that kind of disagreement is not something you do on summary judgment. It requires a trial. 

So the judgment against Brinker on damages was reversed, and the case was sent back to the trial court. 

There was a second issue on appeal as well. Brinker had moved to disqualify one of SPM's attorneys on conflict-of-interest grounds, alleging the attorney had previously represented Brinker in related litigation. The trial court rendered that motion moot after granting summary judgment. The appellate court found that was an error too, since the case was heading back for further proceedings and the issue remained very much alive. 

For anyone in the mortgage and commercial real estate space, this case is a useful reminder. When you are evaluating a commercial property's income potential, the lease terms matter – but not just the rent figures. The default provisions matter too. A landlord who assumes the lease gives them a free pass to collect rent without lifting a finger after a tenant walks may find, as SPM did, that a court sees it differently. And when that happens, the projected cash flow on a property can change in a hurry.