Goreham v. Martins
| Decision Date | 22 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | SJC-12761 |
| Citation | 485 Mass. 54,147 N.E.3d 478 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | Robert GOREHAM v. Jose C. MARTINS & others. |
Louis J. Muggeo (Jared J. Muggeo also present), Salem, for the plaintiff.
Peter C. Kober, Boston, for the defendants.
Christine A. Knipper & Timothy P. Whooley, Boston, for Massachusetts Defense Lawyers Association, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.
Martin J. Rooney, Braintree, for Boston Housing Authority, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.
Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.
The plaintiff, Robert Goreham (tenant), was the second-floor tenant of a three-family home in Salem (premises) owned by the defendants Rose and Jose Martins (landlords).2 In the winter of 2010, the tenant slipped and fell on ice in the driveway adjacent to the premises, severely injuring himself. He brought an action in the Northeast Division of the Housing Court Department against the landlords and Martins Construction Company, Inc.3 (snow plowing contractor) (collectively, defendants), the contractor retained to remove snow and ice from the driveway. A jury found the landlords negligent for failing to exercise reasonable care in keeping the driveway free of ice. However, they also found that the tenant was comparatively negligent and that he was more responsible for the injury than the landlords, resulting in a finding of no liability on the negligence claim.
The tenant also brought claims against the landlords alleging breach of the common-law implied warranty of habitability and violation of the statutory covenant of quiet enjoyment, G. L. c. 186, § 14. Based on the jury's finding, the judge found the landlords not liable on these additional claims. On appeal, the tenant contends that, because the jury found the landlords negligent, the judge was required as a matter of law to find that the landlords committed a breach of the implied warranty of habitability and violated the statutory covenant of quiet enjoyment and that he should therefore recover personal injury damages notwithstanding the jury's finding that he was comparatively negligent.
We conclude that a tenant may not be awarded personal injury damages on a claim for breach of the implied warranty of habitability arising from a landlord's failure to keep common areas reasonably free of snow and ice. We also conclude that, based on the facts of this case, the tenant may not recover personal injury damages under the statutory covenant of quiet enjoyment.4
Factual and procedural background. We recite the facts as the jury could have found them, reserving certain details for later discussion.
The tenant had resided at the premises as a tenant at will since March 1, 2004. The premises had two entrances: a main entrance located on the side of the building and a fire escape located at the rear. The main entrance led out to a few steps, which ended at a sidewalk, and the rear fire escape led out onto the driveway. The tenant testified that he used only the rear fire escape because it was "easier" to enter and exit his apartment that way.
The tenant also testified that, prior to his accident, the winter had been "very snowy" and "a lot worse than most other winters." In fact, it had snowed between nine and eleven inches in the week prior to the tenant's fall. The tenant also said that the snow plowing contractor had done a "great job" of plowing the driveway in previous years but that during that winter "it was just terrible"; he did not, however, complain to the landlords about what he considered to be the dangerous condition of the driveway.
On January 25, 2010, the tenant decided to run some errands after returning from work. He left the building from the rear fire escape and began to walk down the driveway in his sneakers, traversing "diagonally" to avoid the iciest spots. Although he believed that he could safely navigate the driveway, he slipped approximately five feet away from the steps leading to the main entrance. A neighbor who lived across the street saw the tenant lying on the driveway and went to assist him, almost falling herself in the process. Emergency personnel transported the tenant to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a dislocated ankle
and a fractured fibula. As a result of those injuries, he required multiple surgeries over the next few years and continues to experience pain in his ankle.
In December 2011, the tenant brought an action in the Housing Court against the landlords and the snow plowing contractor. The complaint alleged that the landlords were negligent with respect to the removal of snow and ice on the driveway, that they committed a breach of the common-law implied warranty of habitability, and that they violated the statutory covenant of quiet enjoyment.5 The complaint also alleged negligence against the snow plowing contractor.
After a hearing on several motions in limine, the judge decided to submit only the tenant's negligence claims to the jury because the judge believed that the tenant could not prevail on his claims against the landlords for breach of the warranty of habitability and violation of the covenant of quiet enjoyment claims unless the landlords were negligent; the judge reserved disposition of those claims for himself after trial. At trial, the judge also explained that, although there were no Massachusetts appellate decisions on the issue, he believed that damages awarded under both the warranty of habitability and covenant of quiet enjoyment claims were subject to apportionment based on the tenant's own negligence.
The jury, in a special verdict, found that the landlords were negligent, the snow plowing contractor was not negligent, the tenant was comparatively negligent, the tenant's injuries were fifty-three per cent attributable to the tenant's negligence and forty-seven per cent attributable to the landlords' negligence, and the tenant suffered damages in the amount of $25,000.
Because more than fifty per cent of the tenant's injuries were attributable to the tenant's own negligence, the judge concluded that the landlords were not liable for negligence, breach of the warranty of habitability, or violation of the covenant of quiet enjoyment. On the warranty of habitability claim, he determined that the tenant's negligence amounted to "unreasonable misuse" of the rear fire escape -- a doctrine that he borrowed from our products liability jurisprudence, citing Scott v. Garfield, 454 Mass. 790, 795 n.7, 912 N.E.2d 1000 (2009). On the covenant of quiet enjoyment claim, he concluded that comparative negligence applied and that the tenant therefore could not recover damages because his negligence was greater than that of the defendants. Judgment entered for the defendants on all of the claims.
On November 29, 2017, the tenant filed motions for a new trial, for additur, for judgment in his favor on the warranty of habitability and covenant of quiet enjoyment claims, and for an award of attorney's fees on the covenant of quiet enjoyment claim. He contended that unreasonable misuse and comparative negligence were not applicable defenses to the warranty of habitability and covenant of quiet enjoyment claims, respectively, and that a finding of any negligence by the landlords meant that judgment should enter for him on both claims as a matter of law. The judge denied the motions, and the tenant appealed from their denial.6 We transferred the appeal to this court on our own motion.
Discussion. Before we consider the tenant's claims for personal injury damages under the implied warranty of habitability and covenant of quiet enjoyment, we look first to the evolution of our common law regarding negligence liability for slip and falls on snow and ice.
1. Landlord liability in snow and ice cases. Under the traditional common-law rules that governed premises liability in the Nineteenth Century and approximately the first two-thirds of the Twentieth Century, the standard of liability of a property owner for injuries that occurred on the premises depended on the status of the plaintiff, that is, whether the plaintiff was a tenant, an invitee, a licensee, or a trespasser. Papadopoulos v. Target Corp., 457 Mass. 368, 370-371, 930 N.E.2d 142 (2010), citing Young v. Garwacki, 380 Mass. 162, 164, 402 N.E.2d 1045 (1980). "If the plaintiff was a tenant, the landlord had no duty to the plaintiff to maintain any area under the tenant's control in a safe condition: the lease was treated as a transfer of property, and the landlord was only potentially liable for failing to warn the tenant of hidden defects that the landlord was aware of at the time of the lease" or for wantonly or negligently placing a dangerous obstruction in a common area. Papadopoulos, supra at 371, 930 N.E.2d 142. See Watkins v. Goodall, 138 Mass. 533, 536 (1885). Snow and ice were regarded as potentially dangerous obstructions, but a landlord was not liable for injuries sustained by a tenant from a slip and fall in a common area on a "natural accumulation" of snow and ice. Papadopoulos, supra at 372, 930 N.E.2d 142. Rather, "[w]here the obstruction was snow or ice on stairs or a walkway, a landlord could be held liable to the tenant only if he placed the snow or ice there, or was otherwise responsible for it being there." Id. at 373, 930 N.E.2d 142.
In contrast, "[i]f the plaintiff was an invitee, defined as a person invited onto the property by the property owner for the property owner's benefit, ... the property owner owed a duty to use reasonable care to keep the premises ‘in a reasonably safe condition in view of all the circumstances, including the likelihood of injury to others, the seriousness of the injury, and the burden of avoiding the risk.’ " Id. at 371-372, 930 N.E.2d 142, quoting Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693, 708, 297 N.E.2d 43 (1973). This duty required a property owner to make reasonable efforts to protect invitees from dangerous conditions,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Blanchard v. Folkman (In re Folkman)
...a warranty that the leased premises are fit for human occupation and that they will remain so throughout the tenancy." Goreham v. Martins, 485 Mass. 54, 59-60 (2020). It is clear that Plaintiffs have failed to allege sufficient facts to support a cause of action against Coldwell for breach ......
- Commonwealth v. Lougee
-
Axford v. TGM Andover Park, LLC
...of each case, Hemingway, 293 N.E.2d at 843. "The emphasis is on whether the premises are fit for human habitation." Goreham v. Martins, 147 N.E.3d 478, 488 (Mass. 2020). Thus, although conditions that "endanger or materially impair the health or safety and wellbeing of an occupant" as enume......