Court Opinion

ID: 9443608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:25:54.518241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:32.947038
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The key to the decision of the court, relieving both the landlord and the District of Columbia1 from liability, lies in its adherence to the rule at common law that “[a]b-sent any statutory or contract duty, the lessor is not responsible for an injury resulting from a defect which developed during the term.”2 I think that rule is an anachromism which has lived on through stare decisis alone rather than through pragmatic adjustment to “the felt necessities of [our] time.” I would therefore discard it and cast the presumptive burden of liability upon the landlord. This, I think, is the command of the realities and mores of our day.
Courts have gradually recognized, at least in part, that the exalted position which the landlord held at early common law 3 is discordant with the needs of a later day. At early common law a lessee was regarded as having merely a personal right against the lessor.4 But as a result of several remedies that were created in the lessee’s favor,5 he came to be regarded as having rights in rem,6 and the lease “was regarded as a sale of the demised premises for the term.”7 Upon this thesis, the courts held that a lease was “like the sale of specified personal property to be de*326livered”8 and applied the same concept of caveat' emptor that prevailed generally in that day with respect to the sale of all chattels. As a corollary of this concept, courts generally held that the “destruction or any depreciation of [the] value [of the leased premises], other than such depreciation occasioned by.a fault of the lessor, was entirely the loss of the lessee.” 9
“[B]oth the English and the American law have broken almost entirely away from the ancient rule of caveat emptor/’10 with respect to the sale of chattels generally. To some extent this development has been reflected in the law governing landlord and tenant relations. For example, now “the lessor, like a vendor, is under the obligation to disclose to the lessee [not only] concealed dangerous' conditions existing when possession is transferred, of which he has knowledge * * * ” but also any “information [in his possession] which would lead a reasonable man to suspect that the danger exists * * 11 But with respect to the. landlord’s responsibility for the condition of the premises during the term of the lease, courts have failed to reflect this development. As a result, the common law in this respect still lags behind the modern notion that in general one who sells an article is presumed to warrant that it is good for the purpose for which it is sold. In order to keep pace, the law should recognize that when one pays for the temporary use of a dwelling, the parties contemplate that insofar as reasonable care on the part of the owner' can assure it, the dwelling will be safe and habitable, not only at the time of possession is delivered but throughout the period for which payment is made. It is fair to presume that no individual would voluntarily choose to live in a dwelling that had become unsafe for human habitation. The community’s enlightened self-interest requires the same presumption. It follows that, at least 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. Applying this view to the circumstances of the present case, the landlord would be liable for the injuries to little Ralph Ma-honey as the tenant’s invitee. For the lease did not expressly make the tenant responsible fo'r repairs and there is no doubt that the owner of this dilapidated dwelling12 failed to exercise reasonable care to prevent the collapse of the cracked retaining wall. And since the court’s reason for excusing the District of Columbia from liability is that the tenant, and not the landlord, had the duty to repair, that reason would no longer be valid.
One writer has suggested that the rule at common law was evolved at a time when, for the most part, leased property consisted of farm lands and the dwellings thereon were only a minor consideration. But, he said,
“One has merely to consider at the present time the number of crowded tenement houses in cities, which are in many cases occupied by people who are so poor that they are unable to care for themselves, to see the desirability of the landlord’s being obliged to keep such buildings from falling into a state of decay and dilapidation. This affords but a striking example of the changes resulting from the growth of cities and the establishment of new living conditions under which the landlord’s relation to the leased premises remains naturally intimate and his duty to make repairs apparent.” 13
*327Two reasons have been advanced to justify perpetuation of the rule at common law under modern day conditions. First, it is said that the tenant should bear the responsibility for repair during the term of the lease because his control and possession of the premises give him the opportunity to know their condition, whereas the landlord has no such opportunity. This reason might have some validity if the landlord had no right to go upon the premises. But if the landlord is presumed to have the duty to repair, then the concomitant right to enter upon the premises for inspection and repair would be necessarily implied. And, in any case, the landlord can always reserve the right to enter the premises in order to inspect and repair them. Indeed, the case at bar shows that the landlord did enter to make repairs from time to time, not that he was ever refused such entry. And insofar as “notice” is the reason for the rule, it bears emphasis that the landlord had specific notice of the defect which caused the injuries in this case.
The second and a more sophisticated reason for relieving the landlord from liability is the hypothesis that “it is still socially desirable not to discourage investment in and ownership of real estate, particularly private dwellings.” 14 This obj ective may well be desirable. But it is a fallacious oversimplification to suppose that the common law rule has much to do with the rate of investment in real property.15 On the other hand, it seems dear to me that the rule operates to defeat the interests of utility and justice. “Upon whom is the loss to be placed, more justly than upon the landlord? Upon the tenant who, because of his poverty * * * risks his own neck to live in the house ? Upon the tenant’s equally poor guest, the mailman, the visiting nurse, etc. ?” 16 Courts are not impervious to the unequal bargaining position of the parties in interpreting their agreements. For, as Mr. Justice Cardozo said, “Rules derived by a process of logical deduction from pre-established conceptions of contract and obligation have broken down before the slow and steady and erosive action of utility and justice.” 17 This court illustrated that in Kay v. Cain,18 where we said that “ * * *. it is doubtful whether a clause which did undertake to exempt a landlord from responsibility for such negligence would now be valid. The acute housing shortage in and near the District of Columbia gives the landlord so great a bargaining advantage over the tenant that such an exemption might well be held invalid on grounds of public policy.” There is no reason to adopt an inconsistent view where, as here, the dwelling constitutes the entire premises and there is no clause expressly exempting the landlord from liability.
In a great many states,19 the common law rule to which the court adheres in this case has been changed by statutes based upon a recognition of its social and economic undesirability. For example, in explanation of the statute changing the rule in California, the Commissioner’s note states,
“This section changes rule upon this subject to conform to that which, notwithstanding steady judicial adherence for hundreds of years to adverse doctrine, is generally believed by unprofessional public to be law, and upon which basis they almost always contract. The very fact that there are repeated decisions to the contrary, down to the year 1861, shows that the public do not and cannot understand their justice, or even realize their existence. *328So familiar a point of law could not rise again and again for adjudication were it not that the community at large revolt at every application of the rule.”20
It may be fairly asked, should not the courts of the District of Columbia await a congressional change of this rule? Mr. Justice Sutherland provided the answer to this query in Funk v. United States,21 when he said, “It may be said that- the court should continue to enforce the old rule, however contrary to modern experience and thought, and however opposed, in principle, to the general current of legislation and of judicial opinion it may have become, leaving to Congress the responsibility of changing it. Of course, Congress has ■that power; but, if Congress fail to act, as it has failed in respect of the matter now under review, and the court be called upon to decide the question, is it not the duty of the court, if it possess the power, to decide it in accordance with present-day standards of wisdom and justice rather than in accordance with some outworn and antiquated rule of the past? ” He went on to point out that “ ‘This flexibility and capacity for growth and adaptation is the peculiar boast and excellence of the common law. * * * And as it was the characteristic principle of the common law to draw its inspiration from every fountain of justice, we are not to assume that the sources of its supply have been exhausted. On the contrary, we should expect that the new and various experiences of our own situation and system will mould and shape it into new and not less useful forms.’ 22 ”
There'is no fixed line dividing the sphere of action as between the legislature and the courts for effecting needed change of a common law rule. The line should not be marked in accordance with “metaphysical conceptions of the nature of judge-made law, nor by the fetish of some implacable tenet, such as that of the division of governmental powers, but by considerations of convenience, of utility, and of the deepest sentiments of justice.” 23 “Change of this character should not be left to the Legislature.”24 “If judges have woefully misinterpreted the mores of their day, or if the mores of their day are no longer those of ours, they ought not to tie, in helpless submission, the hands of their successors.” 25
It is undoubtedly true that many landlords have shaped their conduct in reliance upon the rule which I would discard. This consideration is entitled to some weight. But, in my view, it cannot outweigh the social and economic need for shifting the distribution of the risk. To those landlords who have acted in good faith there may undoubtedly be some hardship. But in our realistic experience, they are possessed of the better means to discharge this burden. We need give slight consideration to other landlords who would employ the rule to press their advantage to the extent of permitting a known hazard to exist in callous disregard of the safety of fellow human beings who are obviously without the means to protect themselves.

. As I understand the court’s opinion, the District of Columbia’s non-liability arises from the same rule which places responsibility on the tenant himself.

. Majority opinion, p. 6.

. Harkrider, Tort Liability of a Landlord, 26 Mich.L.Rev. 260, 261 (1928).

. 2 Pollack & Maitland, The History of English Law 106 et seq. (2d ed. 1923).

. For example, writ of ejectment.

. Digby, An Introduction to the History of the Law of Real Property 174-6 (4th ed. 1892).

. Harkrider, Tort Liability of a Landlord, 26 Mich.L.Rev. 260, 261 (1928).

. Church, C.J., in Becar v. Flues, 1876, 64 N.Y. 518, 520.

. Harkrider, Tort Liability of a Landlord, 26. Mich.L.Rev. 260, 261 (1928). “It has been said that there is no more reason for holding the lessor liable for damages resulting from a defective condition of the premises than there is for holding the gran tor of a fee simple estate liabie to his grantee.” Id. at 263.

. Prosser on Torts 666 (1941).

. Prosser on Torts 650-51.

. This condition of the leased premises is apparent from the photographs included in the record. Plaintiffs’ Exhibits Nos. 1-A, 1-B, l-C.

. Note, 7 Cornell L.Q. 386, 388 (1922).

. Eldredge, Landlord's Tort Liability for Disrepair, 84 U. of Pa.L.Rev. 467, 490 (1936).

. For an outline of some of the economic considerations, see Shulman & James, Cases and Materials on Torts 588-9 (1942).

. Id. at 587-8.

. Selected Writings of Benjamin Nathan Cardozo 148 (Hall Ed. 1947).

. 1946, 81 U.S.App.D.C. 24, 25, 154 F.2d 305, 306.

. Some of these statutes are collected in Harkrider, Tort Liability of a Landlord, Part II, 23 Mich.L.Rev. 383-91 (1928); see also Shulman & James, Cases and Materials on Torts 589-91 (1942); Prosser on Torts 650 (1941).

. Kerr’s Cyclopedic Codes of California 2232, § 1941 of Civil Code, note 17 (1920).

. 1933, 290 U.S. 371, 381-382, 54 S.Ct. 212, 215, 78 L.Ed. 369. Emphasis supplied.

. Id., 290 U.S. at pages 382-383, 54 S.Ct. at pages 215, 216, quoting Hurtado v. California, 1884, 110 U.S. 516, 530-531, 4 S.Ct. 111. 292. 28 F.Ed. 232.

. Selected Writings of Benjamin Nathan Cardozo 170 (Hall Ed. 1947).

. Wheeler, J., concurring in Dwy v. Connecticut Co., 1915, 89 Conn. 74, 99, 92 A. 883, 891, L.R.A.1915E, 800.

. Selected Writings of Benjamin Nathan Cardozo 172 (Hall Ed. 1947).