The New Jersey Appellate Division reversed a trial court order granting summary judgment to a landlord and awarding more than $542,000 in a battle over unpaid commercial rent on a Hoboken property by a business “devastated” by the mandatory closure and subsequent restrictions placed on it during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the unpublished April 6 opinion, the appellant in this case, Town Sports International Holdings, stopped paying rent in April 2020 and filed for bankruptcy the following September. In bankruptcy court, the landlord, Washington-Hudson Associates, asserted a claim for more than $1.9 million and asserted that TSI had not paid rent and had not vacated the premises until Sept. 29, 2020. The space was eventually rented again in May 2021.