Opinion ID: 1316270
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Contractual Remedies

Text: Upon recognizing that a lease for urban living quarters is essentially a contract, the courts have uniformly made available to the tenant faced with the material breach of warranty the same common law contract remedies of damages, reformation and rescission, see, e. g., Mease v. Fox, supra ; Boston Housing Authority v. Hemingway, supra ; Fritz v. Warthen, supra ; King v. Moorehead, supra ; Restatement (Second) of Property §§ 5.1-5.4 (1977), a more consistent and responsive set of remedies. . . Lemle v. Breeden, 51 How. 426, 462 P.2d 470 (1969). We, too, so hold. [14] Therefore in further answer to Certified Question No. 4(c) as to whether the tenant faced with the landlord's breach of the warranty can vacate the premises and thereby terminate his obligation to pay rent, we need look only to the longstanding contract law of rescission. Breach of contract so substantial as to tend to defeat the very object of the contract, syl. pt. 1, Holderby v. Harvey C. Taylor Co., 87 W.Va. 166, 104 S.E. 550 (1920); see J. W. Ellison, Son & Co. v. Flat Top Grocery Co., 69 W.Va. 380, 71 S.E. 391 (1911) permits the injured party to rescind the contract. The warranty of habitability, a covenant upon which the very duty to pay rent depends, is certainly a vital and essential provision of the lease. Breach of this covenant, upon which the vitality of the lease depends, would entitle the lessee to rescind the lease, to vacate the premises and to be relieved of any further rental obligation. Because the typical residential tenant enters into a lease in order to obtain a habitable place to live, his failure to receive such a place to live would unquestionably justify rescission. Certified Question 5 asks whether a breach of the implied warranty of habitability is a defense to a landlord's action for rent or damages. As is the case with many of the questions certified, the answer is to be found in the long-standing contract law of this jurisdiction. The answer to this particular question appears cogently in Franklin v. Pence, 128 W.Va. 353, 357, 36 S.E.2d 505, 508 (1945): When the covenants are dependent and mutual, as here, a party who violates the contract cannot recover damages which result from its violation by the other party. Thus, breach by the landlord of the implied warranty of habitability, a material covenant upon which the duty to pay rent depends, may be raised as a defense in a landlord's action for rent. When the landlord sues for damages to the premises allegedly caused by the tenant, the tenant may raise breach of the implied warranty as a defense only to show that the damage to the premises resulted from and were caused by the landlord's breach of the implied warranty. When the landlord sues for damages and the tenant contends that the warranty of habitability was breached, but does not maintain that the damages were directly caused by the breach, the tenant could counterclaim for damages reasonably arising from the breach of the implied warranty of habitability. As to the repair and deduct inquiry in Certified Question 4(b), our research reveals that only one of the many cases adopting the implied warranty, Marini v. Ireland, 56 N.J. 130, 265 A.2d 526 (1970), allows the tenant this remedy. We feel at this time, as have apparently the majority of courts dealing with the issue, that the wide range of contract remedies available to the tenant are adequate to enforce fulfillment of the implied warranty. Along with these contractual remedies, of course, the tenant has certain responsibilities under the lease. For example, Since the basic contract remedies are available to tenant, the basic contract duties are imposed upon him. The tenant is under an obligation to give landlord notice of a deficiency or defect not known to the latter. Mease v. Fox, 200 N.W.2d 791, 797 (Iowa 1972). Furthermore, The contract principle that a person may not benefit from his own wrong will exonerate a landlord for a defect or deficiency caused by a tenant's wrongful conduct. King v. Moorehead, supra at 76, citing Javins v. First National Realty Corporation, supra, 138 U.S.App. D.C. 380 at n. 62, 428 F.2d 1082 at n. 62; Hinson v. Delis, 26 Cal.App.3d 62, 70, 102 Cal.Rptr. 661, 666 (1972); Mease v. Fox, supra at 797.