Klager v. Robert Meyer Co.

The plaintiffs are the landlord under a 50-year lease with the defendant Robert Meyer Company, a partnership. The lease was of vacant land and was entered into to develop a shopping center in Ann Arbor. The development fell through when efforts to rezone part of the parcel and to obtain building permits on the rest failed.

Before the lease became "legally effective”, the partnership, with the consent of the landlord, assigned the lease to a corporation with capitaliza tion of $1,000 which assumed "due performance” of the tenants’ obligations under the lease.

The trial judge, sitting without a…