| Court: | WI Supreme Court |
| Facts: | The McTaggarts roke their lease because they got a job elsewhere. The lease contained a clause saying the tenant would pay legal fees associated with lease-breaking, contrary to statute. |
| Posture: | Suit for damages under the lease contract. McTaggarts assert that the legal fees clause makes the whole thing unenforceable. And that theyr security deposit had been wrongfully witheld. |
| Issue: | Can the lease be enforced, even though it has an illegal clause? |
| Holding: | No. |
| Rule: | To enforce this lease would be to undermine the statute. |
| Reasoning: | Generally, the court enforces contracts willingly made. There's a penalty for clauses like this, though. Sometimes we will sever a clause, but there's already unequal bargaining power between landlords and tenants, which is why we have this regulation. If we sever the clause, we defeat the purpose of the regulation, which we decline to do. |
| Dicta: | The McTaggarts did breach their contract; we're not doing this for them. Rather, we're trying to support all the other tenants, who would otherwise be intimidated into silence and victimised by clauses such as this. |