Court Opinion

ID: 9635761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:03:30.366295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:06.414940
License: Public Domain

Heher, J.
(dissenting). Plaintiffs adduced expert opinion evidence tending to show that “if waterproofing were properly applied and the right type applied, it would have stopped the water from coming through that [basement] wall.” The witness was a “consulting engineer” and the operator of “a contracting outfit which waterproofs basements, mostly for builders.” He said he would have “put plaster around the entire walls, all the way around, and all the way to the top, a sump pump and drain system with drains around the entire floor,” and “* * * probably have two pumps to pump out the amount of water that occurred there”; “that would keep water from coming through the walls and up through the floor, but that still wouldn’t keep water from coming through this [outside] areaway and going down”; “* * * they also have to keep the water out of that areaway”; “they can build a wall around it, or they can slope the land away, being sure that they won’t have this big lake of water behind there, because there is a big depression back there, a wide depression behind this building”; “three things” were necessary,- — “to keep the water from coming through the walls, and also through the floor, and also keep it from going through the areaway, to be perfectly safe and prevent this thing from happening”; “(o)n the walls,” the witness said he “would suggest a plaster coat, the floors, the sump pump and drain system, and a positive method of keeping the water out of these areaways would be necessary for them to feel sure about this basement”; a “proper type of waterproofing compound * * * would be sufficient to prevent the water from coming through that wall where the plaster is applied, *151no matter what the difference in elevation between the water on one side and the other; there isn’t enough space to make it too big.”
A witness versed in the “requirements necessary to properly grade a piece of land” testified that on December 28, 1954, when he inspected the locus, the building had “two leaders * * * coming down, straight down, and * * * water all entered into what” he “would call a saucer,” and “(i)nstead of flowing away from the building, it flowed in towards it”; and on a later inspection he found a “slight change” in the adjoining macadamized parking area, a difference in elevation, and a “new [curb] and an old one,” “which means that when water backs up on this curb, as much as two and half inches of water would flow into any openings that are around.”
We are not referred to record evidence contra.
The fault existed from the beginning of the tenancy.
New Jersey has given consistent adherence to the common-law doctrine applied in Coggs v. Bernard (1703), 2 Ld. Raym. 909, 92 Eng. Rep. 107, that one who undertakes to perform an act and performs it negligently, whereby damage results, is liable for his misfeasance; “if a man acts by commission for another gratis,” said Lord Holt, “and in the executing his commission behaves himself negligently, he is answerable. * * * This undertaking obliges the undertaker to a diligent management.” See La Brasca v. Hinchman, 81 N. J. L. 367 (Sup. Ct. 1911). By the common law, said Chancellor Kent, “a mandatary or one who undertakes to do an act for another without rgward, is not answerable for omitting to do the act, and is only responsible when he attempts to do it, and does it amiss. In other words, he is responsible for a mis-feasance, but not for a non-feasance.” Thorne v. Deas, 4 Johns (N. T.) 84. The basis of liability is the breach of a voluntarily assumed duty “to use proper care in the performance of the task”; and, while a mere gratuitous promise to render assistance is not enough, “(t)he duty is * * * all the more clear when” the promisor “has actually entered upon *152the performance itself. A landlord who makes repairs on leased premises although he is under no obligation to do so assumes a duty to his tenant and to those entering in the right of the tenant, to see that the repairs are safe, or at least that the tenant does not remain in ignorance of any danger”; the cases stress the element of reliance upon the ostensible performance of the undertaking, the misleading of the tenant “into the belief that [the danger] has been removed, or by inducing him to forego the possibility of help from other sources”; and there are cases rejecting this requirement, holding the landlord “to the obligation of reasonable care in his undertaking, although the plaintiff has not been further endangered, misled, or deprived of other help.” Prosser, Law of Torts, (2d ed.), 186, 187, 476. The duty is to exercise “reasonable care,” considered by the author as providing “all the limitation that is really necessary.” Ibid. 187. See Seavey, “Reliance Upon Gratuitous Promises or Other Conduct,” 64 Harv. L. Rev. 913, 918 et seq. (1951). Compare O'Leary v. Erie R. Co., 169 N. Y. 289, 62 N. E. 346 (Ct. App. 1901).
And so it is a corollary principle that the duty of reasonable care in the performance of a gratuitous undertaking to make repairs is not confined to the work actually done, as distinct from the work required and undertaken to be done; the landlord’s liability in the circumstances is the correlative of the tenant’s right to rely on the sufficiency of the repairs the landlord has voluntarily undertaken. Such is the measure of the duty. Vollkommer v. Menge, 118 N. J. L. 360 (Sup. Ct. 1937).
My brethren deem the controlling principle to be, “not whether the premises are made more dangerous by the repair voluntarily made by the landlord or whether the tenant was misled into relying upon the sufficiency of the repair to his detriment,” but rather to consider these as elements bearing solely upon “the reasonableness of the conduct of the landlord in the circumstances of the particular case”; and he may be held liable for “not doing enough only where his conduct in such circumstances amounts to negligence.” *153Yet where, it was held in the cited case of Kirshenbaum v. General Outdoor Advertising Co., 258 N. Y. 489, 180 N. E. 245, 84 A. L. R. 645 (Ct. App. 1932), there is present “an element of misrepresentation by the landlord and a reliance thereupon by the tenant,” there is liability in tort, although not in contract; and so also where the gratuitous undertaking was not fully performed, and there is loss from nonrepair, if the landlord has, “by abandoning the work as finished, given a false assurance that the premises are in complete repair, and the tenant has placed full reliance thereupon;” the “ ‘gist of the defendant’s wrong is the misleading quality of his conduct and words.’ Bohlen, Studies in the Law of Torts, p. 212. ‘It is the duty of one choosing to perform a gratuitous undertaking to take care lest he should mislead his promisee into the belief that the work has been well done and the premises made safe for us.’ Id. p. 224.”
The issues of performance of the asserted gratuitous undertaking to repair, measured by the given standard of duty, and reliance upon deceptive assurances of performance, express or reasonably implied, are, I submit, peculiarly within the province of the jury. Vollkommer v. Menge, supra. There is evidence tending to show that the landlord failed in its assumed duty, indeed aggravated the fault by surface changes of the outside areaway; and reasonable reliance upon the false appearance of performance would be a permissible deduction. Were it not for the assurance thus given, the tenants could have taken other means to protect their property. See in this regard Professor Seavey’s conclusions in the article cited supra.
And the duty of care attending the performance of a gratuitous undertaking to repair is nondelegable. Prosser, supra, 476.
I would reverse the judgment.
Weintraub, J., concurring in result.
For affirmance — Chief Justice Yanderbilt, and Justices Oliphant, Burling, Jacobs and Weintraub — 5.
For reversal — Justice Heher — 1.