CAST IRON CO LLC v. CAST IRON CORP (2019)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Jennifer Schecter, J.), entered August 7, 2018, which denied defendant landlord's motion for partial summary judgment on its claim for a declaration that plaintiff tenant is required to perform certain repairs under the lease, unanimously affirmed, with costs.

The motion court properly concluded that the lease does not unambiguously require the commercial tenant to perform structural repairs to the sidewalk vault adjacent to the leased premises.  Although the lease requires the tenant to “maintain” the vault, such a lease provision, without more, does not impose an obligation on the tenant to make structural repairs (see Excelsior 57th Corp. v. Excel Assoc., 126 A.D.3d 479, 480, 5 N.Y.S.3d 400 [1st Dept. 2015]).  Moreover, given that the provision of the lease at issue draws a clear distinction between the landlord's obligation to “maintain and repair the Building both exterior and interior” and the tenant's obligation to “maintain and make all necessary non-structural repairs to the Premises,” the words “maintain” and “repair” cannot be conflated and treated as synonyms (see Searle Blatt & Co. v. Zurich Holding Co., 241 A.D.2d 303, 659 N.Y.S.2d 472 [1st Dept. 1997]).  Accordingly, defendant landlord did not establish entitlement to partial summary judgment on its claim for declaratory relief.

We have considered defendant's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.