American Community Stores Corp. v. Newman
Nebraska Supreme Court
441 S.W.2d 154 (1989)
ACS (plaintiff) abandoned planned assignments of its store leases to Nash-Finch after landlords (defendants) refused consent, and instead structured the deals as subleases ending two days before ACS's own leases expired, with ACS retaining a right to reenter if Nash-Finch breached the sublease terms; the landlords argued the arrangement was really an assignment requiring their consent, especially since Nash-Finch's sublease could be extended to match ACS's option periods and Nash-Finch's own operators were promised occupancy through the full lease term.
Whether a tenant's transfer of his interest in property to another is an assignment rather than a sublease when the tenant retains a reversionary interest in the property.