Oral Modification of Lease Not Established and Landlord Entitled to Unharvested Crops.

The plaintiff leased land from the defendant, a company that his father owned and operated.  A one-year lease was signed in 2003 for rice and soybean and crawfishing rights.  Another one year lease was signed for 2004.  The plaintiff claimed that he made improvements to the property in 2004 in exchange for the promise of a new five-year lease.  A five-year lease was never drafted, but one year leases were drafted for 2005, 2006 and 2007, but were never signed.  The plaintiff was evicted from the land in 2006, before the 2007 crawfish harvest.  The plaintiff sued for damages and the defendant sought damages for the plaintiff's failure to pay fees for rice storage and drying, fuel expenses, off-loading expenses and rental expenses.  The trial court dismissed the claims and the plaintiff appealed, claiming that a five-year lease began in 2004 via the oral modification and that he was entitled to the 2007 crawfish harvest.  On appeal, the court affirmed.  The court noted that there was no ambiguity in the parties' intent to create an annual lease and that the failure to agree to a lease term meant that the lease was for one year under state (LA) law.  Once the tenant was properly evicted from the property, the tenant lost any ability to claim entitlement to an unharvested crop such as the crawfish.  McCraine v. Voyellesland Farms, Inc., No. 15-396, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 2165 (La. Ct. App. Nov. 4, 2015).