White City Shopping Center v. PR Restaurants, LLC

PR Restaurants (plaintiff), operator of Panera Bread locations, held a lease with White City Shopping Center (defendant) barring the landlord from leasing other space to any restaurant whose annual sandwich sales exceeded 10 percent of its total sales, without defining sandwiches. When White City began negotiating a lease with a Qdoba franchise selling burritos, quesadillas, and tacos, PR objected that those items qualified as sandwiches and sought a preliminary injunction to block the lease.

Whether unambiguous words in a contract must be construed according to their ordinary and usual sense.