The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court docket rejected claims made by co-owners of a cleansing franchise that enterprise interruptions ensuing from the COVID-19 pandemic briefly excused them from paying the franchise buy value below the doctrines of impracticability of efficiency and frustration of function.
In Could 2015, the enterprise entity defendant, Lantern 18 LLC, bought the cleansing franchise “Merry Maids of Boston” from the plaintiff, Le Fort Enterprises Inc. Pursuant to an amended promissory notice, its particular person co-owners, Samuel and Marcia Bergman, as co-obligors, had been to pay the franchise buy value via month-to-month installments with a last balloon cost in Could 2022, in line with the court’s opinion filed Jan. 3.