Court Opinion

ID: 9642733
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:07:57.501401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:14.498467
License: Public Domain

Barney, J.
concurring. The essence of this case is an effort to place upon the defendant landlord responsibility for the presence of certain dynamite caps on leased premises, which caps ultimately brought injury to the plaintiff tenant’s small daughter. The test of a prima facie case is obviously met if credible evidence is introduced placing within the actual knowledge of the landlord the existence of dynamite caps on the premises, at a time and place imposing upon him a responsibility of removal or warning to his tenants. Terrill v. Spaulding, 115 Vt. 342, 344, 61 A.2d 611.
This was not the evidence in this case.
The prima facie test may also be met by evidence establishing circumstances placing upon the landlord the burden of knowledge of the safety of the premises, whatever the.actual state of that knowledge. Terrill v. Spaulding, supra. This has two aspects.
The first relates to the condition of all of the premises at the time they are delivered into the possession of the tenants. Here, if there is a hidden and threatening situation which the landlord should be bound to know about, he is under a duty to take steps to protect the ténarit, either by giving him notice or correcting the condition, whichever is appropriate. Masterson v. Atherton, 149 Conn. 302, 179 A.2d 592, 595. For this to be fairly an issue for a jury, some facts must be presented justifying a finding that the dangerous situation actually *256existed at a time when it would operate at law to make the landlord chargeable with knowledge of it. But the evidence in this case leaves the time, as well as the manner, in which the blasting caps came to the shelf in the woodshed entirely indeterminate. Only through speculation and conjecture could the event be made purportedly definite, and a verdict so based is insupportable. Fuller v. City of Rutland, 122 Vt. 284, 289, 171 A.2d 58.
This leaves the one road to liability dependent upon the application of a rule of law holding the landlord, as owner of the property, constructively aware of the condition and contents of the shed at all times. There is such a rule. It applies when evidence is present supporting the conclusion that the landlord had retained control over the part of the premises where the danger existed. Wool v. Larner, 112 Vt. 431, 435, 26 A.2d 89. Such evidence would support submission of the case to the jury and affirm the denial of a directed verdict on that ground. Beaulac v. Robie, 92 Vt. 27, 33, 102 Atl. 88; same case, 93 Vt. 275, 107 Atl. 396.
Was there such evidence to support the application of this doctrine here ? I have not been able to find it. The matter has to be circumstantial, since there is no evidence of an express term of the rental agreement retaining control of the woodshed area in the landlord. In Beaulac v. Robie, supra, 93 Vt. at 279, it is stated that the doctrine finds its common application in the case of passages, platforms, steps, stairways and the like used by various tenants of a single structure, over which the landlord has retained control. But the mere presence of such structures does not demonstrate landlord control, as the Beaulac case indicates. The responsibility of the landlord relates to parts that can be shown to be undemised. Soulia v. Noyes, 111 Vt. 323, 327, 16 A.2d 182.
The alleged retained control of the landlord is, under the testimony in this case, related to two circumstances. The first is that two discarded stoves and a refrigerator belonging to the landlord had been left stored in the shed near the shelf where the caps were found. If retained control of the area were otherwise indicated, the presence of these items might be taken to have some corroborative value. But, b}^ themselves, they do not suggest such an inference. If that were so, their presence in cellar, attic or even in the living quarters would be a limitation on the tenant’s control of the demised premises.
*257The other circumstance is that the two apartments in the building had access to this large, undivided shed in the rear of the structure, available for the use of both tenants for the storage of firewood. This access led onto a single platform along the wall where the shelf was located, adjoining and above the wood storage area. It was possible and convenient to go from one tenement to the other by using this platform. Did this make it the type of corridor or passageway necessarily retained by the landlord as undemised? To say that would seem to suggest that adjoining backyards of first floor tenements are also undemised since they permit passage from one rear entrance to another.
But it is not required that we choose between exclusive control by an individual tenant and exclusive control by the landlord. A more accurate description of the situation described by the evidence in this case is that the woodshed was part of the premises demised to the tenants in the building, to be used by them in common. The plaintiff’s testimony itself indicates such an understanding. Possession and control was entirely in the tenants, and not in the landlord. 32 Am. Jur. Landlord and Tenant, §664, p. 529. An implicit recognition of tenant control of the shed can be drawn from the request to the landlord to remove the stoves and refrigerator. Access to the shed area by the landlord does not negate tenant control. Delphia v. Proctor, 124 Vt. 22, 196 A.2d 567.
This was not such an area as required constant supervision and observation on the part of the owner in the manner of an access hall to an apartment, or an entrance-way to a multiple dwelling. Without a duty arising out of control, the imputation of knowledge of danger from the presence of the caps in the area over a period of time does not occur, and no negligence toward the plaintiffs has been shown. The issue of control was raised in the motion for a directed verdict and it should have been granted. Terrill v. Spaulding, supra, 115 Vt. at 346.
Some suggestion has been made that the rule of Wool v. Larner, supra, 112 Vt. at 435, inappropriate as it may be, became the law of the case. This may possibly be so, but, if it happened, it came about after the motion for, and ruling on, the directed verdict, and would seem to be no obstruction to the result reached here, in which I concur.