Court Opinion

ID: 9842884
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:20:36.67254+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:04.160136
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Circuit Judge,
(dissenting).
Plaintiff-appellant, the landlord, and defendant-appellee, the tenant, entered into a detailed business arrangement which they incorporated in a lease. Plaintiff leased to defendant a substantial business property consisting of a portion of the basement and first floor of a building under construction in the District of Columbia. The tenant in due course took possession under the lease and conducted on the premises, as it was specified the tenant should do, a soda bar, lounge, cafeteria, and retail food store.
The obligations of the landlord and tenant toward each other were set forth in detail in the lease, covering the subjects of completing, furnishing, equipping and decorating, the division of costs of doing so, the rental and method of its calculation, the exclusive right of the tenant to engage in certain types of business in the building, the keeping of records of income, the furnishing of heat, air-conditioning and hot and cold water, the question of responsibility for any failure to furnish said services due to breakdowns or to circumstances beyond the landlord’s control, the payment for utilities, the painting of the exterior, the title to equipment and furnishings, *353maintenance and repair of furnishings, working equipment, fixed equipment, changes in interior, decorations, exterior repairs and replacements, the carrying of liability insurance by the tenant insuring the landlord and tenant against claims for personal injury in or about the premises, and so forth. The lease also provides:
“Tenant will cairy its own fire insurance on the fixtures, equipment and furnishings.”
This, of course, left it to the landlord to carry fire insurance on his building. Then come these provisions:
“12. If the building, of which the leased premises form a part, shall be partially damaged by fire or other cause, the damages will promptly be repaired by and at the expense of the Landlord, provided that the Landlord shall not be liable for any damages due to reasonable delay on account of labor disputes or any other cause beyond Landlord’s control. * * *
“13. Tenant shall not keep in the leased premises gasoline or any other explosive or highly inflammable material which will increase the amount of fire insurance beyond the ordinary risk. The Landlord shall have access to the leased premises at any and all reasonable times for the purpose of protecting the same against fire,- for the prevention of damage and injury to the premises, or for the purpose of inspecting the same. Tenant agrees to comply with all reasonable rules and regulations established for the building of which the leased premises form a part •x * * »
A fire occurred, which partially damaged the building. As to the manner of its occurrence the District Court found that
“[A] female employee of the defendant in performance of her duties left a pot of butterscotch pudding cooking unattended on a stove in the basement of the kitchen portion of the premises demised to defendant, While she was away from the stove, a fire occurred in or spread into a filter at an exhaust duct opening directly above the stove she had been using. This fire then spread into the exhaust duct igniting the grease residues accumulated therein.”
The court also found:
“Promptly after the fire, plaintiff [landlord] repaired the damage and the defendant [tenant] continued to use and occupy the portion of the premises leased to it.”
More than four years have elapsed since the expense of repair was paid by the landlord, as he agreed to do. We have the matter because the landlord sued the tenant to recover this expense on the theory that the fire was caused by the negligence of the tenant, contending that if he is able to prove negligence, then the expense that he, the landlord, agreed with the tenant to pay must be paid by the tenant. The District Court held against this contention and I think rightly so.
The fire was obviously the sort the parties must have considered might occur in the conduct of a restaurant. They agreed as to what should be done in case it did occur. They agreed that partial damage to the building, not to the furnishings and equipment, by a fire or indeed by “other cause,” would be promptly repaired “by and at the expense of the landlord.” There was no qualification having to do with ability to prove later that such a fire was due to the tenant’s negligence, such as the leaving of a “butterscotch pudding cooking unattended on a stove in the basesnent.” A qualification was stated, and it was only that the landlord “shall not be liable for any damages due to reasonable delay on account of labor disputes or any other cause beyond Landlord’s control.”
The landlord had the contractual right of inspection to safeguard against a fire, and the tenant also assumed contractual *354obligations to that end. No breach of these obligations is the basis of the landlord’s effort to recover the cost of repair.
In none of the cases relied upon by the majority was there a provision comparable to the provision in the lease before us imposing responsibility upon the landlord. The case of Boston Metals Co. v. The Winding Gulf, 349 U.S. 122, 75 S.Ct. 649, 99 L.Ed. 933, involved a question of tort liability, not as between the parties to an agreement on the subject, but as. between one party to an agreement and an injured party who was not a party to the agreement. The case is not similar to ours.
The majority correctly points out that no contract or lease was necessary to make the tenant liable to the landlord for his negligence. This is true. But this is not the problem. Our question is what the landlord and the tenant had agreed upon in the event of a fire which partially damaged the landlord’s building. The landlord agreed to repair the damage at his expense. The fact that he agreed to do this promptly does not mean that he was not to do it at his expense.
The agreement is construed by the majority to mean that the landlord will not bear the expense he agreed with the tenant to bear if he can later prove in a lawsuit over the cause of the fire that it was caused by the negligence of the tenant or his employees. • No such qualification was made by the parties in their comprehensive arrangements regarding their obligations to one another. The expense of repair was divided according to where the damage occurred, not according to the ability in protracted litigation to obtain a judicial decision as to its cause. I read no law to require that the agreement not be given effect. Were there no agreement of course the law alone would supply the basis for liability as between the parties; here the law of contracts applies, and it should follow the contract of the parties.
I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.