A West Palm Beach federal judge has curtailed legal efforts by Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. to fight growing competition from discount stores that operate in its shadow at strip malls throughout the South.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in an Aug. 13 ruling looked at more than 100 lawsuits filed by Winn-Dixie in which the chain claimed discount tenants violated “restrictive covenants” in leases that limited the discounters’ grocery items to “the lesser of 500 square feet of sales area or 10 percent of the square foot area of any storeroom within the shopping center.”
