Title: Transport Insurance Co. v. Huston
Citation: 207 Kan. 759, 486 P.2d 1344
Docket Number: 46,051
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: July 16, 1971

207 Kan. 759 (1971)
486 P.2d 1344
TRANSPORT INSURANCE COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellant,
v.
E.G. HUSTON, CHARLES F. CURRY REAL ESTATE COMPANY, a Corporation, and BALTIMORE AVENUE REALTY COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellees.
No. 46,051

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed July 16, 1971.
John T. Flannagan, of Payne and Jones, Chartered, of Olathe, argued the cause and was on the brief for the appellant.
Richard L. Reid, of Kansas City, Kansas, argued the cause and was on the brief for the appellees.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
FOTH, C.:
This is an action by plaintiff-appellant, a workmen's compensation insurance carrier, to recoup compensation paid by it to an injured workman for injuries caused by the alleged negligence of a third party, the defendant-appellee.
Appellant's capacity to maintain the action is based on the statutory assignment of the injured workman's cause of action to his employer wrought by K.S.A. 44-504 and the insurer's right of subrogation under K.S.A. 44-532. The workman failed to bring suit within the time allowed by 44-504, and his employer had been likewise inactive until this action was brought just five days before being barred by the statute of limitations. See Wise v. Morgan-Mack Motor Co., 173 Kan. 372, 246 P.2d 308. The amendments to those two sections found in Laws 1967, ch. 280, effective after this action was commenced, do not alter appellant's status, and its right to stand in the shoes of the injured workman is not challenged.
*760 Liability of the appellee was predicated on its status as lessor of a truck terminal warehouse to the workman's employer. The injury was caused by a defect in the leased premises which was claimed to exist as the result of appellee's breach of a covenant to repair.
The case was tried to the court on a stipulation of facts. From a judgment denying recovery plaintiff has appealed.
Those facts relevant to our disposition of this appeal are set out in the following portion of the parties' stipulation below:
There were appended to the stipulation five letters from Texas Oklahoma Express, Inc., to the appellee's managing agent. Two of these were written before the accident in question and called attention to alleged defects in the premises. However, we do not deem the details of any of this correspondence relevant to our decision here.
Both parties recognize that Kansas has firmly embraced the rule contained in the American Law Institute's Restatement of the Law of Torts, § 357:
The judicial history culminating in our unqualified endorsement of this proposition is fully chronicled by Mr. Justice Fatzer in Williams v. Davis, 188 Kan. 385, 362 P.2d 641, holding the doctrine applicable to a lease of any type of premises, whether residential or commercial. In its subsequent adoption of the Restatement of Torts, Second, the Institute adhered to the basic concept of § 357, *762 merely substituting "contracted" for "agreed" in clause (a), and adding as a further condition of liability that it arises only if "(c) the lessor fails to exercise reasonable care to perform his contract." We likewise adhere to the basic concept, and we accept the modifications as sound.
In Williams v. Davis, supra, we quoted with approval the comment and illustration accompanying § 357, which are retained as to the same section in the Restatement of Torts, Second. Particularly pertinent here is the statement:
It therefore becomes necessary to analyze the lessor's obligation to repair, as set forth in the lease. The critical provision is paragraph 19, which provides:
In its brief appellant urges that the emphasized portion of this paragraph is ambiguous and "should be given no effect whatsoever." But, "A cardinal rule in the construction of contracts is that they must be interpreted in light of their own peculiar provisions, and every provision must be construed, if possible, so as to be consistent with every other provision and to give effect to all." (Wiles v. Wiles, 202 Kan. 613, 619, 452 P.2d 271. Emphasis added.) The language in question was obviously inserted in the lease with some purpose in mind; it was a portion of one of seven typewritten paragraphs added to seventeen printed paragraphs of a form lease. We do not find in it the ambiguity asserted by appellant. We construe it as an exception to the lessor's obligation, requiring only a direct causal connection between the activities of the lessee and the defect to relieve the lessor of its duty to repair.
The trial court reached the same conclusion. In his letter opinion the trial judge first found that there had not been sufficient notice to the lessor of the existence of the defect  an issue we do not reach  and went on to say:
The evidence the trial court had before it was, of course, the stipulation of facts quoted from above. Paragraph 6 of the stipulation put the lessee in exclusive possession of the premises; paragraph 7 indicated that the purpose of the guilty bumper was to absorb the shock of trucks hitting the dock, and that the lessee was engaged in the trucking transport business, using the premises as a terminal warehouse. It was from these facts that the trial court concluded that a loose or damaged bumper would be "caused by the acts of the lessee, its agents, servants or employees" in allowing trucks to come in contact with it.
We believe this was a permissible inference from the stipulated facts. This being so, the defect or condition came squarely within the exception to the lessor's covenant to repair, and there could be no liability on its part to the injured workman and hence none to appellant.
The judgment is affirmed.
APPROVED BY THE COURT.