Tellez and coach in disputes over rent
A pair of Toronto landlords are accusing Blue Jays first baseman Rowdy Tellez and firstbase coach Mark Budzinski of skipping out on months of rent payments following the postponement of the Major League Baseball season.
Linda Pinizzotto, a real estate agent, and husband Derrick Thomas rented downtown Toronto condos to Tellez and Budzinski, respectively, in late January, according to lease documents provided to the Star.
Tellez, who goes by his birth name of Ryan in the lease, signed a six-month term on Pinizzotto’s fully furnished twobedroom unit on Blue Jays Way for $4,100 a month. The lease included stipulations if Tellez was traded or sent to the minor leagues.
Budzinski’s lease on Thomas’s one bedroom-plus-den condo on nearby Wellington Street West was also for a six-month term, at $3,100 a month.
The leases were scheduled to begin on March 24, two days before the Jays were to open their season. But the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the season two weeks before it began, and Pinizzotto said she and Thomas are now out thousands of dollars because Tellez and Budzinski are trying to cancel their leases.
“We were shocked, shocked,” said Pinizzotto, who calls this a case of “no play, no pay.”
She said Tellez, who lives in Florida in the off-season, paid the first and last month’s rent, an $8,200 deposit. But after not hearing from him for months after he signed the lease, Pinizzotto said she was notified in a letter from Florida lawyer Michelle Austin Pamies, dated April 16, that “the COVID-19 virus had made performance under the lease impossible” and that, although Tellez would not seek reimbursement for the deposit, he “does not intend to make any further lease payments for the property.”
“A basic assumption under which the lease was entered into was that there would be a baseball season and that Mr. Tellez would play for the Toronto Blue Jays … Due to COVID-19, there is no baseball season and therefore Mr. Tellez will not be playing for the Toronto Blue Jays. Furthermore, non-essential travel between the United States and Canada has ceased due to COVID-19 and Mr. Tellez cannot travel to Canada,” the letter read.
Pamies’ law firm did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
John Bianchi, Pinizzotto’s lawyer, said his client approached Tellez about working through the obstacle the pandemic presented, to no avail.
A party “simply cannot do the ‘midnight run’ from a contract,” said Bianchi.
“COVID-19 doesn’t not exonerate Mr. Tellez from his obligations,” he wrote in an email to the Star. “He cannot unilaterally cancel the contract. He is not above the law.”
He believes a “reasonable” adjudicator would acknowledge the contract and recognize the pandemic “to arrive at a calculated decision.”
“Maybe my client is not made fully whole, but Mr. Tellez does not walk away unscathed,” he said.
Budzinski paid the first and last month’s rent, as well as rent for April, totalling $9,000. But Thomas received a letter from Budzinski’s paralegal, Jeffrey Shabes, asking for that money to be refunded.
In an email to the Star, Shabes confirmed the application was filed at the Landlord and Tenant Board on Budzinski’s behalf. A telephone hearing is scheduled for later this month.