Court Opinion

ID: 9445005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:18:10.791488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:05.906880
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Circuit Judge, with whom EDGERTON, Chief Judge, joins
(concurring).
I concur in the foregoing opinion of the court. I would add only this. Bailey v. Zlotnick, 1945, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 117,149 F.2d 505,162 A.L.R. 1108, is sufficient authority, as the court says, upon which to rest the landlord’s liability. Under that case, a landlord, who is not required by agreement to make repairs but does so voluntarily, is “under a duty not to create an unsafe condition” in doing his beneficent act. But since the effect of this principle may be to stifle such beneficence, I would have preferred to rest liability on a broader view set forth in my dissent in Bowles v. Mahoney, 91 U.S.App.D.C. 155, 160, 202 F.2d 320, 325, certiorari denied, 1953, 344 U.S. 935, 73 S.Ct. 505, 97 L.Ed. 719. According to this view, the realities of modern day urban living require that “in the absence of express provision to the contrary, a landlord who leases property should be held to a continuing obligation to exercise reasonable care to provide that which the parties intended he should provide, namely, a safe and habitable dwelling.” 91 U.S.App.D.C. at page 161, 202 F.2d at page 326.