Title: Favreau v. Miller

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under R.A.P. 40
as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                No. 87-085


Pamela Favreau                               Supreme Court

     v.                                      On Appeal From
                                             Chittenden Superior Court
Donald Miller
                                             April Term, 1989


Alden T. Bryan, J.

William R. Marks, Burlington, and James M. Libby, Jr., Vermont Legal Aid,
  Inc., Montpelier, for plaintiff-appellant

Miller & Tonelli, Randolph, for defendant-appellee


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Peck, Gibson, Dooley and Morse, JJ.


     MORSE, J.  Plaintiff brought suit to recover for her injuries after she
fell down the stairs in the apartment she rented from the defendant in
Burlington, Vermont.  The jury found for defendant, and plaintiff appeals,
claiming error in the jury instructions.  We affirm.
     In December 1983, plaintiff and a roommate rented the apartment -- the
second and third floors of a house -- from defendant.  Defendant lived on
the first floor.  The interior stairway in question led from the
apartment's main living area on the second floor to a large bedroom on the
third, an area that was formerly the attic.  The stairway was steep, had no
handrail, and headroom at the top was inadequate.  Defendant knew of these
problems and the parties had discussed plans for renovations.  Thereafter,
on March 19, 1984, plaintiff fell down the stairs, dislocating her hip.
     The court instructed the jury on the landlord's negligence as follows:
        First, you should understand that a landlord is not a guarantor
     of the safety of his tenants, nor is he liable for every injury
     that his tenants may suffer on the premises.  He may be found
     liable, however, where personal injuries to tenants are caused by
     his negligence in caring for the property.  The landlord is
     required to use reasonable care in the upkeep of his apartments
     and to keep them in reasonably safe condition for his tenants.
     Failure to use reasonable care in the upkeep of the property may
     be negligence, for which the landlord can be held liable if a
     tenant is injured.

        Negligence is the doing of some act which a reasonably prudent
     person would not do, or the failure to do something which a
     reasonably prudent person would do, when prompted by consider-
     ations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs.  It
     is, in other words, the failure to use ordinary care under the
     circumstances in the management of one's person or property.
     Ordinary care is that care which reasonably prudent persons
     exercise in the management of their own affairs in order to avoid
     injury to themselves or their property, or to the person or
     property of others.

        As applied here to an apartment house, negligence means the
     lack of ordinary care in the upkeep of the property in order to
     avoid an unreasonable risk of injury to tenants.

        A landlord is required to take reasonable steps to repair any
     dangerous condition for which he has had notice.  He is also
     required to know of any dangerous condition of which, in the
     exercise of reasonable care, he would have learned about.  He is
     not required to know of all conditions that become dangerous from
     time to time, absent lack of ordinary care in knowing the con-
     dition of his property.  Where, of course, the landlord has
     acknowledged to the tenant the existence of a dangerous condition,
     you may consider that as evidence of notice.

       Where a landlord has notice, or with due diligence should have
     known of a condition dangerous to the safety of tenants, he is
     required to use ordinary care to make the property safe.  That is,
     he must take such reasonable steps as are necessary to take care
     of the problem within a reasonable time.

        Some conditions are so serious that prompt measures are
     required to be taken.  Others are not so serious and can await a
     convenient moment to get to them.  What is reasonable will depend
     upon the circumstances of the particular case.

        Therefore, the plaintiff must prove each of the following
     essential elements of her case by a preponderance of the evidence:

          1. That the condition of the stairway under
          consideration was unreasonably dangerous;

          2. That Donald Miller knew, or with the exercise of
          reasonable care should have known, that there was a
          dangerous condition with respect to the stairway leading
          to the third floor;

          3. That he failed to take reasonable steps within a
          reasonable time to make them appropriately safe for the
          tenants;

          4. That the unreasonable dangerous condition was the
          proximate cause of injuries to the plaintiff.

        It might be well to define what we mean by the term
     "unreasonably dangerous."  Something is unreasonably dangerous
     when it has a tendency to cause injury beyond the degree
     ordinarily to be expected by a reasonably prudent and knowledge-
     able user.  A stairway is unreasonably dangerous when its
     likelihood of causing injury is beyond that ordinarily to be
     expected, and which should not be expected to be safely negotiated
     by the use of ordinary care.

        There has been evidence introduced here concerning the
     Burlington Minimum Housing Code.  The Code requires stairways in
     rental apartments to be kept in a safe condition.  Those that are
     unsafe do not comply with the Code.  It will be for you the jury
     to determine whether or not, on the evidence presented here, the
     stairway in question complied with the Code.  If you find that it
     did not, then you may consider such fact as evidence that the
     stairs were unreasonably dangerous.  If the defendant knew or
     should have known that the stairs were in violation of the Code,
     and he failed to take reasonable steps to bring them into
     compliance, you may consider such fact as evidence of negligence.

        Old buildings often have been modified for uses different than
     what was originally intended.  Apartments in old buildings often
     are not as convenient or as safe as in modern buildings.  Where a
     tenant voluntarily rents an apartment with knowledge that it has a
     less than convenient stairway which requires some additional care
     to negotiate, the tenant cannot complain if he or she fails to use
     the care required to descend the stairs successfully.

        Where the stairs are unreasonably dangerous, however, and
     cannot be negotiated safely with the ordinary care expected of one
     living in such an apartment, then the tenant is not held to have
     assumed the risk of injury that is caused by the unreasonably
     dangerous condition.  It will be for you the jury to determine
     from the evidence whether the stairs here were unreasonably
     dangerous.
     Plaintiff complains that the jury instructions were deficient in two
general respects.  First, over plaintiff's objection, the trial court
refused to instruct the jury that landlord liability for personal injury
could be based upon a breach of the implied warranty of habitability,
regardless of the landlord's negligence.  Second, plaintiff claims that the
jury instructions on negligence were inadequate.  Specifically, she argues
that the court erred by permitting the jury to find that plaintiff assumed
the risk of the defective stairway by renting an old apartment with
knowledge of the stairway's condition.  She claims further that the
instructions misled the jury into believing that dangerous conditions that
are "not so serious" do not require prompt repair by the landlord.  Finally,
plaintiff maintains that evidence of noncompliance with an applicable
housing code establishes a prima facie case of negligence; the court
instructed only that a violation of the housing code could be used by the
jury as evidence of the landlord's negligence.
                                    I.
     We note at the outset that the jury instructions in this case,
requiring a landlord to exercise ordinary care in the upkeep of the rental
property, represent a significant development in the common law of landlords
and tenants, because landlords had been immune from liability for any injury
to a tenant occurring in an area not within the landlord's possession and
control.  Thus, in Smith v. Monmaney, 127 Vt. 585, 588,