Opinion ID: 2451366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Express and implied warranties of habitability

Text: Appellant cites us to nothing that would sustain a finding of an express warranty by Ms. Walker as to the condition of the premises and the record refutes any such contention. As to an implied warranty of habitability, appellant tracks the development of recent changes in the earlier common law of nonliability of landlords, citing cases from our own as well as other jurisdictions: Blagg v. Fred Hunt & Co., 272 Ark. 185, 612 S.W.2d 321 (1981); Sargent v. Ross, 113 N.H. 388, 308 A.2d 528 (1973); Kline v. Burns, 111 N.H. 87, 276 A.2d 248 (1971); Wawak v. Stewart, 247 Ark. 1093, 449 S.W.2d 922 (1970). Appellant contends, in short, that when Ms. Walker rented the building to Mr. Sanders she impliedly warranted the premises to be fundamentally safe. In Wawak this court did recognize for the first time an implied warranty of fitness in a sale of a new dwelling. A decade later in Blagg v. Fred Hunt & Co., supra , the doctrine was extended to a sale involving parties who were not in privity with the original vendor-builder. Appellee points to the obvious distinction between the case at bar and the Wawak and Blagg casesthe dwellings in Wawak and Blagg were newly constructed, both less than a year old, whereas the building in this case is easily twenty years old. In Blagg we specifically observed that an implied warranty will expire after a reasonable time. Without suggesting that on this proof a submissible factual issue existed for breach of an implied warranty, we believe that time had dissolved any warranty of the fitness of these premises.