Fuller v. Housing Authority of City of Providence

• Decision Date: 22 July 1971
• Docket Number: No. 1193-A,1193-A
• Citation: 49 A.L.R.3d 382,108 R.I. 770,279 A.2d 438
• Parties: , 49 A.L.R.3d 382 Rosa FULLER v. The HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF PROVIDENCE. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 438

279 A.2d 438

108 R.I. 770, 49 A.L.R.3d 382

Rosa FULLER v. The HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF PROVIDENCE.

No. 1193-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 22, 1971.

Matthew F. Callaghan, Jr., Providence, William F. Reilly, Warwick, for plaintiff

Keenan, Rice, Dolan & Reardon, John W. Kershaw, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

KELLEHER, Justice.

The defendant Housing Authority operates a large housing development in South Providence. The development consists of over 25 separate apartment buildings all of which are situated on a large somewhat rectangular parcel of land. The parcel is bounded on all its four sides by various public highways. Running throughout the parcel are common passageways called service lanes. They provide ingress to the various apartment buildings and egress to the public highways for the tenants, vehicles and visitors who come onto the development's premises.

The plaintiff, a widow in her seventies, has been a longtime tenant of defendant. She was injured on Monday, January 31, 1966, when, as she was returning home from work at approximately 11:30 p.m., she slipped and fell on the icy snow-covered service lane. The record shows that on the previous day, Sunday, January 30, 1966, more than five inches of snow had fallen in the Providence area. The defendant made no effort to remove the snow from the lane where plaintiff fell.

This suit is a negligence action. It was tried to a Superior Court jury. At the conclusion of plaintiff's case the trial justice granted defendant's motion for a directed verdict. The trial court's action was based on the holding made in Pomfret v. Fletcher, 99 R.I. 452, 208 A.2d 743, where a majority of the court decided that a landlord owed no duty to his tenant to remove snow and ice which had naturally accumulated on the common ways controlled and maintained by the landlord.

The sole issue presented by this appeal is whether we should affirm the ruling in Pomfret or should we now adopt a rule which would hold the landlord responsible for injuries sustained by his tenant which are attributable to a natural accumulation of ice and snow on the common premises.

In Pomfret, the majority adopted what is known in the snow and ice facet of landlord-tenant law as the Massachusetts Rule, so described because it was first set forth in Woods v. Naumkeag Steam Cotton Co., 134 Mass. 357 (1883). It states that a landlord is under no duty to his tenant to remove from common passageways or stairs any natural accumulation of snow and ice.

The Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors in Reardon v. Shimelman, 102 Conn. 383, 128 A. 705 (1925), refused to follow the Massachusetts Rule and declared that a landlord owed a duty to his tenant to use reasonable care to see that the common areas are kept reasonably safe from the dangers created by an accumulation of snow and ice which is attributed to purely natural causes. The holding in Reardon is known as the Connecticut Rule.

When presented with the issue now before us, a majority of jurisdictions have followed the Connecticut Rule. ¹ A collection of case can be found in 26 A.L.R.2d 610 and its later case service. The text writers subscribe to the Connecticut Rule. ² Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 27:17 at 1516-1517 (1956); Prosser, Law of Torts (3d ed.) § 63 at 420 (1964).

In Rhode Island, a possessor of land who leases a portion thereof and retains in his control any other portion which is used in common by his tenants, owes to his tenants the duty to maintain the retained portion in a reasonably safe condition consistent with its prospective use. Reek v. Lutz, 90 R.I. 340, 158 A.2d 145; Allen v. William H. Hall Free Library, 68 R.I. 80, 26 A.2d 751. This duty has been extended to include the proper maintenance of passageways or sidewalks outside the demised premises. Lawton v. Vadenais, 84 R.I. 116, 122 A.2d 138.

In explaining their adoption of the Massachusetts Rule, we find that the majority in Pomfret not only described it as being the one better suited to New England's 'capricious winter climate,' but also remarked that to hold otherwise would put 'too great a burden upon a landlord.' We believe that today a landlord, armed with an ample supply of salt, sand, scrapers, shovels and even perhaps a snow blower, can acquit himself quite admirably as he takes to the common passageways to do battle with the fallen snow, the sun-melted snow now turned to ice, or the frozen rain. We fail to see the rationale for a rule which grants a seasonal exemption from liability to a landlord because he has failed to take adequate precautions against the hazards that can arise from the presence of unshoveled snow or unsanded or saltfree ice found in the areas of his responsibility but yet hold him liable on a yearround basis for other types of defects attributable to the workings of mother nature in the very same portions of his property. If a landlord may be liable for a tenant's injury caused by a defect on a common premises such as a rusted handrail or a rotted step, why should he be released from liability where the injury is caused by a natural accumulation of snow and ice which is negligently permitted to remain upon the surface of the common passageway To draw such a distinction, said the court in Langhorne Road Apartments, Inc. v....