Constructive Eviction

Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Kaminsky

768 S.W.2d 818 (Tx. Ct. App. 1989)

MURPHY, JUSTICE

The issue in this landlord-tenant case is whether sufficient evidence supports the jury’s findings that the landlord and appellant, Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company [“Fidelity”], constructively evicted the tenant, Robert P. Kaminsky, M.D., P.A. [“Dr. Kaminsky”] by breaching the express covenant of quiet enjoyment contained in the parties’ lease. We affirm.

Dr. Kaminsky is a gynecologist whose practice includes performing elective abortions. In May 1983, he executed a lease contract for the rental of approximately 2,861 square feet in the Red Oak Atrium Building for a two-year term which began on June 1, 1983. The terms of the lease required Dr. Kaminsky to use the rented space solely as “an office for the practice of medicine.” Fidelity owns the building and hires local companies to manage it. At some time during the lease term, Shelter Commercial Properties [“Shelter”] replaced the Horne Company as managing agents. Fidelity has not disputed either management company’s capacity to act as its agent.

The parties agree that: (1) they executed a valid lease agreement; (2) Paragraph 35 of the lease contains an express covenant of quiet enjoyment conditioned on Dr. Kaminsky’s paying rent when due, as he did through November 1984; Dr. Kaminsky abandoned the leased premises on or about December 3, 1984 and refused to pay additional rent; anti-abortion protestors began picketing at the building in June of 1984 and repeated and increased their demonstrations outside and inside the building until Dr. Kaminsky abandoned the premises.

When Fidelity sued for the balance due under the lease contract following Dr. Kaminsky’s abandonment of the premises, he claimed that Fidelity constructively evicted him by breaching Paragraph 35 of the lease. Fidelity apparently conceded during trial that sufficient proof of the constructive eviction of Dr. Kaminsky would relieve him of his contractual liability for any remaining rent payments. Accordingly, he assumed the burden of proof and the sole issue submitted to the jury was whether Fidelity breached Paragraph 35 of the lease, which reads as follows:

Quiet Enjoyment

Lessee, on paying the said Rent, and any Additional Rental, shall and may peaceably and quietly have, hold and enjoy the Leased Premises for the said term.

A constructive eviction occurs when the tenant leaves the leased premises due to conduct by the landlord which materially interferes with the tenant’s beneficial use of the premises. Texas law relieves the tenant of contractual liability for any remaining rentals due under the lease if he can establish a constructive eviction by the landlord.

The protests took place chiefly on Saturdays, the day Dr. Kaminsky generally scheduled abortions. During the protests, the singing and chanting demonstrators picketed in the building’s parking lot and inner lobby and atrium area. They approached patients to speak to them, distributed literature, discouraged patients from entering the building and often accused Dr. Kaminsky of “killing babies.” As the protests increased, the demonstrators often occupied the stairs leading to Dr. Kaminsky’s office and prevented patients from entering the office by blocking the doorway. Occasionally they succeeded in gaining access to the office waiting room area.

Dr. Kaminsky complained to Fidelity through its managing agents and asked for help in keeping the protestors away, but became increasingly frustrated by a lack of response to his requests. The record shows that no security personnel were present on Saturdays to exclude protestors from the building, although the lease required Fidelity to provide security service on Saturdays. The record also shows that Fidelity’s attorneys prepared a written statement to be handed to the protestors soon after Fidelity hired Shelter as its managing agent. The statement tracked TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. §30.05 (Vernon Supp. 1989) and generally served to inform trespassers that they risked criminal prosecution by failing to leave if asked to do so. Fidelity’s attorneys instructed Shelter’s representative to “have several of these letters printed up and be ready to distribute them and verbally demand that these people move on and off the property.” The same representative conceded at trial that she did not distribute these notices. Yet when Dr. Kaminsky enlisted the aid of the Sheriff’s office, officers refused to ask the protestors to leave without a directive from Fidelity or its agent. Indeed, an attorney had instructed the protestors to remain unless the landlord or its representative ordered them to leave. It appears that Fidelity’s only response to the demonstrators was to state, through its agents, that it was aware of Dr. Kaminsky’s problems.

Both action and lack of action can constitute “conduct” by the landlord which amounts to a constructive eviction.…

This case shows ample instances of Fidelity’s failure to act in the fact of repeated requests for assistance despite its having expressly covenanted Dr. Kaminsky’s quiet enjoyment of the premises. These instances provided a legally sufficient basis for the jury to conclude that Dr. Kaminsky abandoned the leased premises, not because of the trespassing protestors, but because of Fidelity’s lack of response to his complaints about the protestors. Under the circumstances, while it is undisputed that Fidelity did not “encourage” the demonstrators, its conduct essentially allowed them to continue to trespass.

[The trial court judgment is affirmed.]

Landlord’s Tort Liability

Stephens v. Stearns

106 Idaho 249; 678 P.2d 41 (Idaho Sup. Ct. 1984)

Donaldson, Chief Justice

Plaintiff-appellant Stephens filed this suit on October 2, 1978, for personal injuries she sustained on July 15, 1977, from a fall on an interior stairway of her apartment. Plaintiff’s apartment, located in a Boise apartment complex, was a “townhouse” consisting of two separate floors connected by an internal stairway.

The apartments were built by defendant Koch and sold to defendant Stearns soon after completion in 1973. Defendant Stearns was plaintiff’s landlord from the time she moved into the apartment in 1973 through the time of plaintiff’s fall on July 15, 1977. Defendant Albanese was the architect who designed and later inspected the apartment complex.

* * *

When viewed in the light most favorable to appellant, the facts are as follows: On the evening of July 15, 1977, Mrs. Stephens went to visit friends. While there she had two drinks. She returned to her apartment a little past 10:00 p.m. Mrs. Stephens turned on the television in the living room and went upstairs to change clothes. After changing her clothes, she attempted to go downstairs to watch television. As Mrs. Stephens reached the top of the stairway, she either slipped or fell forward. She testified that she “grabbed” in order to catch herself. However, Mrs. Stephens was unable to catch herself and she fell to the bottom of the stairs. As a result of the fall, she suffered serious injury. The evidence further showed that the stairway was approximately thirty-six inches wide and did not have a handrail although required by a Boise ordinance.

* * *

In granting defendant Stearns’ motion for directed verdict, the trial judge concluded that there was “an absolute lack of evidence” and that “to find a proximate cause between the absence of the handrail and the fall suffered by the plaintiff would be absolutely conjecture and speculation.” (Although the trial judge’s conclusion referred to “proximate cause,” it is apparent that he was referring to factual or actual cause. See Munson v. State, Department of Highways, 96 Idaho 529, 531 P.2d 1174 (1975).) We disagree with the conclusion of the trial judge.

We have considered the facts set out above in conjunction with the testimony of Chester Shawver, a Boise architect called as an expert in the field of architecture, that the primary purpose of a handrail is for user safety. We are left with the firm conviction that there is sufficient evidence from which reasonable jurors could have concluded that the absence of a handrail was the actual cause of plaintiff’s injuries; i.e., that plaintiff would not have fallen, or at least would have been able to catch herself, had there been a handrail available for her to grab.

In addition, we do not believe that the jury would have had to rely on conjecture and speculation to find that the absence of the handrail was the actual cause. To the contrary, we believe that reasonable jurors could have drawn legitimate inferences from the evidence presented to determine the issue. This comports with the general rule that the factual issue of causation is for the jury to decide. McKinley v. Fanning, 100 Idaho 189, 595 P.2d 1084 (1979); Munson v. State, Department of Highways, supra. In addition, courts in several other jurisdictions, when faced with similar factual settings, have held that this issue is a question for the jury.

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Rather than attempt to squeeze the facts of this case into one of the common-law exceptions, plaintiff instead has brought to our attention the modern trend of the law in this area. Under the modern trend, landlords are simply under a duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances. The Tennessee Supreme Court had the foresight to grasp this concept many years ago when it stated: “The ground of liability upon the part of a landlord when he demises dangerous property has nothing special to do with the relation of landlord and tenant. It is the ordinary case of liability for personal misfeasance, which runs through all the relations of individuals to each other.” Wilcox v. Hines, 100 Tenn. 538, 46 S.W. 297, 299 (1898). Seventy-five years later, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire followed the lead of Wilcox. Sargent v. Ross, 113 N.H. 388, 308 A.2d 528 (1973). The Sargent court abrogated the common-law rule and its exceptions, and adopted the reasonable care standard by stating:

We thus bring up to date the other half of landlord-tenant law. Henceforth, landlords as other persons must exercise reasonable care not to subject others to an unreasonable risk of harm.…A landlord must act as a reasonable person under all of the circumstances including the likelihood of injury to others, the probable seriousness of such injuries, and the burden of reducing or avoiding the risk.

Id. at 534 [Citations]

Tennessee and New Hampshire are not alone in adopting this rule. As of this date, several other states have also judicially adopted a reasonable care standard for landlords.

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In commenting on the common-law rule, A. James Casner, Reporter of Restatement (Second) of Property—Landlord and Tenant, has stated: “While continuing to pay lip service to the general rule, the courts have expended considerable energy and exercised great ingenuity in attempting to fit various factual settings into the recognized exceptions.” Restatement (Second) of Property—Landlord and Tenant ch. 17 Reporter’s Note to Introductory Note (1977). We believe that the energies of the courts of Idaho should be used in a more productive manner. Therefore, after examining both the common-law rule and the modern trend, we today decide to leave the common-law rule and its exceptions behind, and we adopt the rule that a landlord is under a duty to exercise reasonable care in light of all the circumstances.

We stress that adoption of this rule is not tantamount to making the landlord an insurer for all injury occurring on the premises, but merely constitutes our removal of the landlord’s common-law cloak of immunity. Those questions of hidden danger, public use, control, and duty to repair, which under the common-law were prerequisites to the consideration of the landlord’s negligence, will now be relevant only inasmuch as they pertain to the elements of negligence, such as foreseeability and unreasonableness of the risk. We hold that defendant Stearns did owe a duty to plaintiff Stephens to exercise reasonable care in light of all the circumstances, and that it is for a jury to decide whether that duty was breached. Therefore, we reverse the directed verdict in favor of defendant Stearns and remand for a new trial of plaintiff’s negligence action against defendant Stearns.