Court Opinion

ID: 9449988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:31:21.21038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:05.765627
License: Public Domain

WILBUR K. MILLER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The language and length of the foregoing opinion demonstrate the difficulty the majority met with in affirming a judgment which was based on sympathy instead of legal liability. In the circumstances, the appellant owed Mrs. DeBeve and her child no duty whatever with respect to screens; they were plainly trespassers, as the District Court said and as the majority opinion says.
Even as to an actual tenant, the appellants’ only duty under § 2806 of the Housing Code1 was to provide screens which would effectively keep insects out. I think the majority err in adding another requirement: that owners of residential buildings must provide “screens which keep flies out and children in.” This addition is unjustified under applicable regulations or otherwise. The notion that screens are to “keep children in” has no foundation whatever, as far as I know. The Housing Code does not require screens to be of such strength as to form protective barriers which will withstand the violent impact of a child’s body. As we said in Peigh v. Baltimore & O. R. Co.: 2
“ * * * Violation of a regulation does not, ipso facto, give rise to civil liability unless the regulation is one designed to prevent the sort of harm to the individual relying on it which has in fact occurred. * * ”
The regulation here involved was promulgated, as its terms clearly show, to require screens for the protection of tenants against flies and mosquitoes during the season when such insects appear. It was not designed to prevent the sort of harm which occurred in this case: the safety of children was not its goal.
Leaving small children, unattended, to play on a bed placed beside an open third-story window, protected only by a. screen which they knew to be defective, was an inexcusably reckless act on the part of the two mothers, but for which the unfortunate accident would not have occurred. It does not appear that the child would not have fallen if the screen had not been defective; this alone is enough to prevent recovery. Moreover, the screen involved in this case, though defective, was in place, serving its purpose of keeping out flies and mosquitoes; *832so § 2806 of the Housing Code was not violated.
I cannot agree to this opinion which imposes liability upon a landlord for injury sustained by a person to whom he owed no duty because a screen could not withstand violence it was not designed to meet. My view is that the judgment should be reversed and the case remanded for the entry of judgment for the defendants, non obstante veredicto.

. That section is as follows:
“The owner or licensee of each residential building sliall provide screens for all openings to tlie external air from March 15 through November 15, both dates inclusive. Such screens shall have a minimum of 16 meshes to the inch or the equivalent effectiveness thereof and be so maintained as to prevent effectively the entrance of flies and mosquitoes into the building; Provided, that effective means other than screens may be substituted therefor when specifically approved by the head of the Housing Division of the Department of Licenses and Inspections. All hinged screen doors shall open outwardly and be self-closing. Half screens may be used for double hung windows if they are so designed that they can readily serve either half of the window.”

. 92 U.S.App.D.C. 198, 200, 204 F.2d 391, 393, 44 A.L.R.2d 671 (1953).