Deerfield-New.com-Deerfield Beach,Fl-After having read the complaint filed in Broward Circuit court in the case of Class Act Restaurant Group d/B/A Deerfield Beach Cafe v The City of Deerfield Beach. I while no legal scholar have to believe the City has the better legal position in this matter.
Those that read Deerfield-News.com know I held the position in the Sunshine Clothier Camper on the beach case that she had the upper hand and better legal argument. The city settled with her and she received a check for her property.
There is no 5 year lease attached to the Plaintiff’s Class Act Restaurant Group complaint.Plaintiff alleges they have a five year extension of the original 10 year lease. If there was a lease where is it? Why didn’t Class Act Restaurant Group seek injunctive relief and make a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) at the point of the bidding process when the city extended their lease for six months? Certainly if they had demonstrated the four things required to obtain injunctive relief at that time because they had a lease,one would think a TRO would have been granted.
The two most important factors in receiving injunctive relief are irreparable harm and the likelihood of success on the merits.Again if they have a five year lease extension and the city was trying to evict them it appears they would have met the 2 most important factors to receive injunctive relief and a TRO would have been granted.
Plaintiff also alleges that the city violated the “Cone Of Silence” during the bidding process.
Class Act Restaurant Group is now a hold over tenant refusing to leave the city owned building.Generally evictions are also a fairly quick process the lawsuit from the city is 115 pages. One would expect soon a Broward Circuit court judge will issue that order.
This publisher of Deerfield-News.com believes that Class Act Restaurant Group will file for Chapter 11 which is an automatic stay on any eviction and will buy them time.This is our opinion I have no dog in this fight do not know either of the parties.
Certainly under Chapter 11 the protection a Federal Court can give includes the stay of the lease with the city of Deerfield Beach.The use of that strategy will be temporarily successful and allow Class Act to continue to operate as a “Debtor in Possession” and get thru the season if not longer. This will only delay the inevitable unless they have that 5 year lease extension they claim to have. The inevitable is eviction and a judgment in favor of the city and probably legal fees being paid by the plaintiff to the city and some damages for the city.
