Skip to main content
DRAFT FOR ATTORNEY REVIEW — NOT FINAL

Porter Novelli, Inc. v. Bender, 817 A.2d 185 (2003)

Citation
Porter Novelli, Inc. v. Bender, 817 A.2d 185 (2003) 2.
Parent Document
Porter Novelli, Inc. v. Bender, 817 A.2d 185 (2003)
Jurisdiction
DC (municipal)
Effective Date
2003-02-20

Full Text

1,262 chars
2. Next, landlord’s tenant — URS Greiner Woodward-Clyde, Inc. (not a party to this appeal) — forfeited a $21,308.38 security deposit to landlord upon subtenant’s failure to vacate the premises when the lease expired. Subtenant claims a credit from landlord for this amount. We cannot agree. Subtenant is not in privity with the lease between landlord and URS; landlord was entitled to the forfeited deposit that its tenant, not subtenant, had agreed to pay. Indeed, the only record evidence implicating subtenant and URS’s security deposit is a paragraph of the sublease providing that subtenant indemnify URS against loss resulting from “failure to timely surrender the demised premises” (an issue on which we express no opinion). Nor, finally, has subtenant previously argued in landlord-tenant court, or before this court on motion for stay, that URS’s security deposit was germane to this landlord-subtenant dispute. To the contrary, subtenant told the first landlord-tenant judge to hear this matter that the “triple rent agreement is going to be without prejudice to the landlord’s right to retain URS’s security deposit under the prime lease as this deal is directly between the sub-tenant and the landlord.” We perceive no equity here favoring subtenant.