Deem v. Charles E. Smith Management, Inc.

• Decision Date: 08 September 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-1996,85-1996
• Citation: 799 F.2d 944
• Parties: Laura Jean DEEM, Appellant, v. CHARLES E. SMITH MANAGEMENT, INC., Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 944

799 F.2d 944

Laura Jean DEEM, Appellant, v. CHARLES E. SMITH MANAGEMENT, INC., Appellee.

No. 85-1996.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 5, 1986.

Decided Sept. 8, 1986.

Charles Shepherd Cox, Jr., Alexandria, Va., for appellant.

Anthony E. Grimaldi (Doherty, Sheridan & Grimaldi, Fairfax, Va., on brief), for appellee.

Before HALL, MURNAGHAN, and WILKINSON, Circuit Judges.

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

The plaintiff in this case sued the defendant landlord for failing to protect her from a criminal assault by an unknown third person. Because we find that Virginia law imposed no such duty of protection, we affirm the judgment for defendant.

I.

Laura Jean Deem was the resident manager of the Windsor Towers apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia. On the night of March 19, 1983, she returned to her apartment at 9:00 after a personal errand. Because the front lot was full, she parked her car behind the building and started to walk around to the entrance. At the rear corner, a man sprang from the bushes, accosted Deem, and beat and sexually assaulted her.

Deem sued her landlord and employer, Charles E. Smith Management, Inc. She alleged that Smith Management had left the parking lot in an unsafe condition, without adequate lighting, despite the company's knowledge of previous criminal attacks in the lot. This breach of Smith Management's duties to her as a tenant and as an employee, she argued, had led in part to her injuries.

The district court heard testimony on behalf of Deem and then directed a verdict for Smith Management. The court held that the landlord did not have a duty under Virginia law to protect its tenant from the criminal acts of third parties; even if such a duty did exist, the court ruled, Deem had not offered sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that the Windsor Towers lot was known to be unsafe. The court noted further that there was "no evidence" that an absence of lighting was a "particular cause" of the assault. We affirm.

II.

As a matter of Virginia common law, this case is controlled by Gulf Reston, Inc. v. Rogers, 215 Va. 155, 207 S.E.2d 841 (1974), where a tenant sued her landlord after her husband died from injuries suffered in an assault. ^* The Virginia Supreme Court described the principal issue as "whether the landlord owed the duty to protect the tenant from a criminal act of an unknown third party." Id. at 843. The court noted that this duty does inhere in some relationships, including those between a common carrier and its passenger or an innkeeper and its guest. Id. at 844. In the landlord-tenant relationship, however, "Gulf Reston was under no duty to protect Rogers from an intentional criminal act committed by an unknown third person." Id. at 845. The same conclusion applies equally to Smith Management and Deem: the landlord owed no duty of care. And "where there is no legal duty to exercise care, there can be no actionable negligence." Virginia Ry. & Power Co. v. Winstead's Adm'r., 119 Va. 326, 89 S.E. 83, 84 (1916) (citations omitted).

Deem argues that the common law rule of Gulf Reston v. Rogers has been superseded by the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, Va.Code Secs. 55-248.2 et seq. In her view, this statute required Smith Management to maintain the premises so as to protect its tenants from foreseeable criminal acts. She points to the landlord's obligation under Sec. 55-248.13(a)(3) to "keep all common areas shared by two or more dwelling units of the premises in a clean and safe condition." She claims, in addition, that the lighting in the Windsor Towers parking lot did not satisfy the standards of the Arlington County Code and the landlord's obligation under Sec. 55-248.13(a)(1) to "comply with the requirements of applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety." For the right to enforce these duties in a suit for damages, she relies on Sec. 55-248.21: "the tenant may recover damages and obtain injunctive relief for noncompliance by the landlord with the provisions of the rental agreement or of this chapter." See also Sec. 55-248.40.

We disagree with Deem's interpretation of the landlord's statutory duties to keep the premises in a safe condition and to comply with local housing codes affecting safety. The Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act does not define a "safe condition" as used in Sec. 55-248.13(a)(3) or "safety" as used in Sec. 55-248.13(a)(1). We believe, however, that those terms refer to the protection of the tenant from injuries caused by failures of the building--collapsing stairs, faulty walls, dangerous windows. This interpretation is consistent with the common law recognition of a landlord's "duty to use ordinary care to keep [common areas] in a reasonably safe condition." Revell v. Deegan, 192 Va. 428, 65 S.E.2d 543, 546 (1951). This interpretation still recognizes that there exist legal...