Court Opinion

ID: 9772288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:13:09.935671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:43.341345
License: Public Domain

LOWENSTEIN, Judge,
dissenting.
It is with reluctance that I file this dissent to the majority opinion of Judge Smart. Whether we as a society want to admit it or not, the fact remains a large portion of the population is single, and of necessity must rent living quarters, and are not in a position to make frequent changes in rental quarters. These people are at risk from just the kind of person who committed this assault on the plaintiff. Society, government, police, etc., have labored for years, without much success, to protect these and other citizens from violent crime.
I do not here propose that landlords be saddled with the legal duty of protectors or absolute insurers of tenant safety. What Missouri law should do is encourage landlords to take quantifiable preventative measures to thwart crimes against those who rent from them. Here, for example, there *284was a sign in a poorly lighted common area between the building and the street, and since there had been a call by a tenant for better lighting, it would have been relatively simple to install lighting, and relatively cheap to pay the electricity. If the cost to the landlord is to be passed on to the tenant, so be it. Surely the costs associated with lighting grocery store entryways are passed on to the public at the cash register. Surely, too, the cost of security guards increasingly seen at merchants’ stores is a portion of the charge paid by the customer, and the cost of bodyguards for corporate executives is passed on to the consumers of that company’s products.
The “special circumstances” exception for landlord liability, which has been adopted in the “modern trend of authority” has as its elements: (1) notice of repeated criminal activity on the premises where the criminal activity occurred, (2) the portion of the premises where the criminal activity occurred was exclusively in the landlord’s control, and (3) the landlord had the exclusive power to take preventative action, but failed to do so. Advance Rental Centers, Inc., v. Brown, 729 S.W.2d 644, 646 (Mo.App.1987) (citing Kline v. 1500 Mass. Ave. Apmt. Corp., 439 F.2d 477, 481 (D.C.Cir.1970)). It is clear that the sign and lighting of the exterior of the building were exclusively in the landlord’s control, and that the landlord failed to take preventative measures. The only element missing in this case is the notice of prior violent criminal activity. It seems unfair to perpetuate the requirement of this element, for the result would be to allow the next victim at the apartments to make a case, based on the misery of Vittengl. Language in Aaron v. Havens, 758 S.W.2d 446, 447-8 (Mo. banc 1988), casts doubt on the efficacy of the past crimes element as requiring they be the same as the crime committed in the pending case. “It is not necessary to allege that past crimes involving entry into unauthorized places are of the same general nature as one that gave rise to the claim.” Id. at 447.
In Aaron the Supreme Court of Missouri recognized that a landlord has a duty to use due care to make the common premises surrounding the apartment building safe, as against foreseeable risks. Id. There is nothing wrong in finding a landlord duty here. There was no lighting in the common area on the west side of the building. Large open areas (a cemetery) were nearby. The tenant complained and asked for lighting. The landlord has agreed lighting was needed. The neighbor who reported the matter to the police could not see the attack. To rest on traditional common law requirements, in this factual context, misses the mark. Under these facts, the special circumstance exception quoted by the majority at page 275 should apply. The sign and lack of lighting, other than street lighting on the west side, exposed the tenant to an enhanced risk of crime, and the landlord had notice of the risk.
There can be no question that the lighting issue here could only have been addressed by the landlord. The tenants were in no position to install lights on or near this budding. “[A] landlord is under a duty to exercise ordinary care to keep the portion of the premises he retains control over in a reasonable safe condition for the use identified and is liable for damages for personal injuries resulting from his failure to perform that duty.” Stubbs v. Panek, 829 S.W.2d 544, 546 (Mo.App.1992). In Stubbs, the plaintiff “made repeated complaints about the door and asked for it to be repaired, but it [the dead-bolt lock] was not repaired.” Id. at 547. The same scenario held true in Aaron v. Havens, supra, 758 S.W.2d at 448, where the Court determined the fire escape was part of the common area and the landlord had exclusive control to make repairs and allow the tenants better protection over a fire escape, and such protection was “reasonably available.” See, Johnston v. Harris, 387 Mich. 569, 198 N.W.2d 409, 410 (1972). (Vestibule and porch lighting).
In sum, the landlord, as compared to the tenant, was in a better position to provide requested protection in the form of lighting on an unlighted portion of the building, for the purpose of minimizing a risk to the tenant. It is not proposed that the landlord be the insurer, or even the alter ego of the police, but only to take the readily identifiable and, as here acknowledged by the landlord, the common sense and easily defined step to provide lighting. Kline v. 1500 Massachusetts Avenue Apartment Corp., 439 F.2d 477, 484, 487-8 (D.C.Cir.1970). The *285Kline court, acknowledging higher rental costs would be the result of it’s decision, went on to say that without the protection, the tenant already pays in losses from physical assault and higher insurance premiums. The sizeable jury verdict does not, and should not detract from the conclusion that the plaintiff made a submissible case, and but for instructional error on the size of the sign, made this case one for a jury’s decision.
Question must also be made of the analysis in the majority, pages 14-20, of there being insufficient evidence of duty and causation. Under the majority analysis, an expert could not testify because any testimony of opinion would be subject to objection as speculative, and objectionable as invading the province of the jury. So too would be the self-serving testimony of the victim. Assuming, without agreeing, that the Dr. Gist testimony was improper, what else could plaintiff have done here to make a case, other than to elicit the testimony of other tenants as to safety conditions in the common areas or that of the assailant as to why he chose that particular victim or location. The plaintiffs request for fighting on the west side of the building, even though a year prior to the attack, was sufficient to submit the case to the jury. She should not have been required to have to testify or explain the landlord’s response, if any. Her request for fighting was not infirm because she failed to predict she would be a victim or would be beaten, dragged and poked with a stick. If indeed,her request was proper, and fighting was needed, the ball was in the landlord’s court, experts or no experts, to take the reasonable precaution to install fights.
I would reverse the judgment for the reason of instructional error in allowing the jury to reach a verdict against the landlord because the sign was larger than allowed by municipal ordinance, and would remand for and allow a new trial since the plaintiff made a submissible case against the defendant. Medina v. 187th Street Apartments, Ltd., 405 So.2d 485, 487 (Fla.App.1981).