Tenant bears burden of proving that landlord failed to mitigate damages

The Fourth District Court of Appeals held that two tenants had the burden of proving that landlord failed to mitigate damages after they moved and skipped out on rent for their final two quarters. Two Ohio University students signed a lease making them jointly and severally liable for four quarterly rental payments of $1500 for each academic quarter. After two quarters, they moved out and failed to pay rent for the final two academic quarters. The landlord brought suit seeking $3000 in unpaid rent, $100 for repairing broken furniture and cleaning, $84.99 for the unpaid gas bill, $74.90 for advertising the apartment after they left, and $400 in attorney's fees.

The landlord ran advertisements for the apartment in March and April and showed the apartment to several potential renters but with no success. The appeals courts found that she had mitigated her damages and awarded the unpaid rents of $3000 to her. The tenants presented no evidence to counter this and failed to carry their burden of proof on the issue. The landlord also tried to obtain $400 in attorney's fees because the tenants had violated their statutory obligation to dispose of rubbish. Ohio Revised Code section 5321.05(A)(2) requires a tenant to dispose of rubbish. A failure to do so may result in the award of attorney's fees against the tenant. Here, the appeals court held that since the tenant's did not contest the forfeiture of their $500 security deposit, the landlord did not need an attorney to recover her $100 in cleaning fees. No attorney's fees were awarded.

Hines v. Riley (1999), 129 Ohio App.3d 379 (Ohio App. 4 Dist.).

If you found this information helpful and are looking for more information or would like to support this website, please consider ordering a copy of our book on Ohio landlord tenant law.

Disclaimer: The information provided on ohiolandlordtenant.com is not intended to be legal advice, but general information related to legal issues commonly encountered. The law in your state may be different from that discussed here. The facts in your case may be different too. You would be foolish to rely on legal information that you got from an internet site, including ohiolandlordtenant.com. Copyright 2006 ohiolandlordtenant.com. All rights reserved.