Opinion ID: 5116742
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusive Control

Text: [¶8] Boles argues that the court erred in concluding that the premises was under the exclusive control of the Lytles because the Whites reserved the right to access the premises “for purposes of repair and inspection” in paragraph ten of the lease. Under Nichols, a landlord must first establish the landlord’s “absence of control in order to avoid liability for a dangerous condition on the premises.” Stewart, 2002 ME 16, ¶ 12, 788 A.2d 603 (quotation marks omitted). “Although we have not explicitly defined the term ‘control,’ the cases applying Nichols illustrate that [it] means a power over the premises that the landlord reserves pursuant to the terms of the lease or the tenancy, whether express or implied, and does not include the incidental control that comes from being able to threaten tenants with nonrenewal of a lease or with eviction.” Id. ¶ 13. More specifically, “landlords may retain control over non-common areas when they reserve certain rights or responsibilities over the premises by the terms of the lease or tenancy.” Id. [¶9] Applying these principles, we vacated a summary judgment in favor of the defendant landlords after concluding that there was a genuine dispute of fact concerning the degree of control retained by the landlords because they reserved the right to enter the premises to plow snow from the parking lot and 6 did in fact plow snow “whenever necessary.” Hankard v. Beal, 543 A.2d 1376, 1377-78 (Me. 1988). Similarly, we vacated a summary judgment in favor of the defendant landlord after concluding that there was a genuine dispute of fact concerning the degree of control retained by the landlord over the basement stairs because, although the stairs could be accessed only through the plaintiff’s apartment, there was evidence that the lease did not include the basement or its stairs, that the plaintiffs accessed the stairs only at the landlord’s behest, and that the landlord occasionally used the stairs to service the furnace in the basement. Rodrigue v. Rodrigue, 1997 ME 99, ¶¶ 4, 12-13 n.2, 694 A.2d 924; see also Chiu v. City of Portland, 2002 ME 8, ¶¶ 12-15, 788 A.2d 183 (reasoning that there was a genuine dispute as to whether the tenants had exclusive control over an exterior window because the landlord had previously repaired an adjacent exterior window, could have repaired the window without entering the residence, had been asked by the tenant to fix the windows at issue, and “did not disavow his obligation to repair” them). [¶10] The question before us is whether, as a matter of law, the reservation of access in paragraph ten of the lease for purposes of “inspection and repair,” without more, creates a genuine dispute as to whether the Lytles had exclusive control over the premises, including the interior staircase. We 7 conclude that it does not create such a dispute. The Whites’ general reservation of access for purposes of repair and inspection is distinct from the landlords’ degree of control disputed in Hankard, Rodrigue, and Chiu. In those cases, there was at least some evidence of shared control in each case between the landlord and tenants—those landlords had actually exercised some form of control, whether reserved or not, over the portion of the premises at issue during the tenancy. See Hankard, 543 A.2d at 1377-78 (landlords reserved the right to plow and did plow snow on parking lot over which control was disputed); Rodrigue, 1997 ME 99, ¶ 12 n.2, 694 A.2d 924 (landlord did not clearly include in the lease the stairs over which control was disputed and used those same stairs during the lessee’s tenancy); Chiu, 2002 ME 8, ¶ 14, 788 A.2d 183 (landlord previously repaired windows over which control was disputed).3 [¶11] Our conclusion is consistent with decisions in other jurisdictions that have deemed a landlord’s mere reservation of the right to enter and repair the premises insufficient evidence of that landlord’s control for purposes of liability. See e.g., Lucier v. Impact Rec., Ltd., 864 A.2d 635, 640 (R.I. 2005) (“The 3 Even viewing the landlords’ reservation of access in Hankard in isolation, paragraph ten remains distinguishable because the reservation in Hankard was not a general reservation of the right to enter for inspection and repair; rather, it was a reservation of the right to enter for the specific purpose of plowing snow. Hankard, 543 A.2d at 1377-78. 8 lease provisions,” including the landlord’s right to enter the premises to determine whether it was in good condition, “did not give [the landlord] control over the property, but rather were merely to protect [the landlord’s] investment and reversionary interest in the property.”); Settles v. Redstone Dev. Corp., 797 A.2d 692, 696 (D.C. 2002) (“A landlord has retained sufficient control to create a duty to repair if he has the power or authority to manage, superintend, direct or oversee,” but “the landlord’s explicit reservation of the authority to enter the premises and to make repairs is insufficient to constitute retention of control.”) (quotation marks omitted); Dubay v. Cambridge Hous. Auth., 225 N.E.2d 374, 375 (Mass. 1967) (“The reservation of the right to enter the tenant’s premises to make repairs . . . did not put the lessor in control of the premises.”) (quotation marks omitted); Webb v. Danforth, 505 S.E.2d 860, 861 (Ga. Ct. App. 1998) (“A landlord’s retention of the right to enter, inspect and repair is not inconsistent with a full surrender of possession to the tenant.”). [¶12] Given the “bedrock principle” that a lease “is equivalent to a conveyance for almost all purposes,” Stewart, 2002 ME 16, ¶ 14, 788 A.2d 603, and in the absence of evidence showing that the Whites had, in fact, retained or exercised any degree of control over any portion of the premises after renting 9 it to the Lytles, we conclude that the Lytles were in exclusive control of the premises.