Opinion ID: 1699743
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: duty to repair broken pipes

Text: The trial court found that the repairs were occasioned by the tenants' fault because, upon leaving the premises for the semester break, they took no precautions to prevent the pipes from freezing during their absence at a time when subfreezing temperatures were not uncommon in Baton Rouge. The trial judge found under the terms of the lease that the tenants were responsible for paying for the pipes' repair. And because of his finding the defendants at fault, the trial judge denied their reconventional demand for damages. Finally he awarded the plaintiff one hundred dollars in attorney's fees under the express language of the lease. [1] The defendants' appealed the district court judgment against them. The Court of Appeal, in turn, examined the separate applicable sections of the lease in this case in conjunction with a discussion of the appropriate codal provisions and concluded that the Repairs and Maintenance section of the lease [2] obligated the lessor to repair the roof and those conditions caused by fire or `other casualty' provided the need for these repairs was not caused by the lessee's fault or negligence. 432 So.2d at 400. Then, assuming that the term `other casualty' contemplates water pipes being ruptured as a result of a severe freeze, supra, the Court of Appeal concluded that the need for repair of the pipes in this case was caused by the lessees' fault and negligence. The Court of Appeal's finding that the need for repair of the pipes was caused by the lessees' fault or negligence prompted our granting the defendants' writ application. We do not dispute, nor do the defendants, the appellate court's recitation of the applicable law in this matter. [3] The Court of Appeal, and presumably the trial court, were prompted to rule as they did on the negligence question by the following considerations: A tenant could prevent frozen pipes in a raised single house by insulating the exposed pipes under the house, by shutting off the water at the main valve and draining the pipes, by letting the water run during the subfreezing temperatures. A plumber testified at trial that shutting off the water was the preferred means of preventing frozen pipes because letting the water run could cause dangerously low water pressure for other city services. Although there was testimony that it might have been difficult for the tenants themselves to turn off the water, the appellate court stated that [i]f [the lessee Ms. Neyrey] could have had the water cut off after the freeze, then she could have had the water cut off in this manner prior to the freeze. Either Ms. Neyrey or [her co-tenant] Ms. Russo could have made arrangements for the pipes to have been drained after the water was cut off. 432 So.2d at 401. In the lower courts' opinions, had the lessees taken ordinary measures to protect the pipes from freezing, there would have been no damages. Therefore the tenants' failure to act constituted negligence. In making our findings, we assess the facts differently. In deciding whether these students were at fault or negligent, we are influenced by the following evidence as it is established in this record. The defendants were not permanent residents of the Baton Rouge area. They were two Louisiana State University students with homes in Morgan City, Louisiana and New York, New York respectively. In the late summer of 1981, they signed a lease for a single raised house in Baton Rouge, which lease was for the school year from August, 1981, through May, 1982. It was only a little over four months later while both were away on vacation between academic semesters that the exposed pipes of this raised cottage froze during unprecedented low temperatures. Both lessees were unfamiliar with the protective measures that might be called for to prevent residential water pipes from freezing in the winter. Neither had lived in a raised house before, nor had either the previous experience of living in any house where the pipes had frozen. Testimony at trial established that it was not an easy task to shut off the water to this house. Apparently the only way to turn off the water to this residence manually was at the water meter box in the street, by means of a special water meter key available only to plumbers and/or by purchase from a hardware plumbing-supply store. The only tool these two students had was a hammer used for hanging pictures. Furthermore there was no reason for the students to have anticipated the onslaught of unprecedented below-freezing temperatures during their absence from Baton Rouge. While weather records and data were not introduced into evidence, the parties concede that the cold freezing weather of the sort experienced in Baton Rouge during the time in question in January, 1982, was more of a rarity than a frequent occurrence. There was testimony that the Baton Rouge area had not experienced temperatures so low since about 1963, some eighteen years earlier at a time when the students themselves were probably infants. Furthermore, at the time that they each left for their month long semester break, the Baton Rouge weather was warm and temperate. Before leaving, the students expressly notified their landlady, the plaintiff in this case, that they were leaving the house unoccupied and that they had instructed a neighbor to take in the mail. There was discussion of the problems of vandalism and theft, not of the weather. The landlady was well aware of the defendants' leaving the house unoccupied and the house was accessible to her. She testified that her own children attended Louisiana State University, so she was familiar with the university schedule. This unprecedented freeze happened before the students arrived back in Baton Rouge from their semester break and the pipes were frozen upon their return to the leased premises. Under these circumstances, we find the lower courts were clearly wrong in finding fault or negligence on the part of these LSU students. Arceneaux v. Domingue, 365 So.2d 1330 (La.1978). Because the need for repairing the pipes was not caused by the lessees' fault or negligence, the lessor under the Repair and Maintenance section of the lease was obligated herself to repair those conditions caused by other casualties, the freeze.