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Idaho’s Supreme Court recently issued a new opinion discussing the requirements to form a valid lease agreement. Unfortunately, the case raises as many questions as it answers.

In 616 Inc. v. Mae Properties, LLC, No. 49190 (Feb. 8, 2023), the court reminded us that four necessary terms must be agreed upon to create an enforceable lease: (1) a definite agreement as to the extent and bounds of the property leased; (2) a definite and agreed term (length of time); (3) a definite and agreed price of rental, and (4) the time and manner of payment. If any of those essential terms are left for future negotiations, no lease comes into being and the parties are left with an unenforceable “agreement to agree.” In addition, if the length of the lease term is more than one year, the lease will not be enforceable against a party unless the four essential elements are memorialized in a writing that is signed by that party. The court may, however, overlook the lack of a signed writing in cases where the contract has been partially performed if there is other sufficient evidence of agreement on all the essential terms.Continue Reading Idaho’s Supreme Court Raises New Questions About the Essential Elements of a Lease

Donatelli v. D.R. Strong Consulting Engineers, Inc. [Wash. Sup. Ct. No. 86590-6]

A five justice majority in this case continued to develop the “independent duty doctrine” in Washington. That doctrine has superseded the “economic loss rule,” which previously limited recovery of economic damages to contract claims and recovery of non-economic damages to tort claims. According to the majority opinion, described in greater length below, a contracting party can have a duty in tort to another contracting party if and only if the duty is independent of the agreement. If the contract is unclear, then it must be interpreted by a trier of fact before dismissal based on the independent duty doctrine is proper. As explained by the four-justice dissent, this analysis is unnecessary to the independent duty doctrine, cannot be harmonized with the parties’ agreement, and is not supported by settled principles of contract law. Consistent with those legal principles, the dissent would limit the plaintiff to contract damages where, as here, the parties’ agreement encompasses the risk of harm that is claimed.
Continue Reading Washington Supreme Court Breaks New Ground with Independent Duty Doctrine

Austin executed a real estate purchase and sale agreement for the purchase of the Ettls’ property. On the day of closing, the Ettls provided Austin with a real property transfer disclosure statement (Form 17), which disclosed two proposed local improvement districts. The Ettls’ statement did not disclose these districts’ potential costs. Austin did not seek…

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Welcome to the Stoel Rives Appellate Law blog, dedicated to providing those in appellate law practices regular updates on significant decisions from courts of appeal within our regions of practice. It is our goal to build out this blog to be a handy resource for both keeping up to date on new decisions and quickly locating information about past decisions.