Leominster Fuel Co. v. Scanlon

• Decision Date: 29 November 1922
• Citation: 243 Mass. 126,137 N.E. 271
• Parties: LEOMINSTER FUEL CO. v. SCANLON et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

243 Mass. 126

137 N.E. 271

LEOMINSTER FUEL CO.

v.SCANLON et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

Nov. 29, 1922.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Worcester County; Stanley E. Qua, Judge.

Action of contract by the Leominster Fuel Company against Michael R. Scanlon and others to recover the expense of repairing and replacing a broken plate glass window on premises leased by plaintiff from defendants. The court found for defendants, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.

Plaintiff's exceptions were to the denial of requested rulings raising the question whether it was the duty of plaintiff or defendants to replace the window, which was broken by a third person. The court ruled that it was the duty of the tenant, and not of the landlord, to repair the window.

Gardner K. Hudson and George M. Barrows, both of Fitchburg, for plaintiff.

Harry C. Bascom, of Leominster, for defendants.

RUGG, C. J.

This is an action of contract wherein the plaintiff seeks to recover the expenses of replacing a plate glass window broken by a third person, who ran into it from the street. The window was on the first floor next to the sidewalk, formed a part of the outer wall of the plaintiff's office, and admitted light to no other part of the building. The plaintiff was tenant of the defendants under a lease for a term of years, which described the demised premises in these words:

‘The landlord lets and the tenant hires one room on the first floor of the building No. 8 on Mechanic street in the city of Leominster, with the lavatory and conveniences connected or enjoyed therewith, and the use of the corridors and halls leading thereto, and the passenger elevator provided for the use of the tenants in said building, together with steam heat for said offices and building.’

Amongst other covenants of the lessee was this:

‘To keep the premises in tenantable repair, damage by fire, unavoidable casualty and usual wear and tear alone excepted.’

It was also agreed that the lessee should not affix, paint or inscribe any sign, advertisement or notice upon any part of the outside or inside of the building except by consent of the lessors. The lessors covenanted:

‘To keep the premises other than said offices, including the stairways, halls and elevator, in good repair.’ ‘To insure the premises and reinstate the same in case of damage by fire.’

The lessors refused, after demand by the lessee, to replace the window, whereupon the latter did it at its own expense and brings this action to recover the cost.

It is settled that a lease of a floor or story of a building includes its outer walls. Lowell v. Strahan, 145 Mass. 1, 12 N. E. 401,1 Am. St. Rep. 422;Conahan v. Fisher, 233 Mass. 234, 236, 124 N. E. 13. In the former case it was said (145 Mass. at page 8, 12 N. E. 404,1 Am. St. Rep. 422) that the words ‘floor’ or ‘story’--

‘differ somewhat from the word ‘room,’ * * * The word ‘room’ includes a description of the perpendicular as well as of the horizontal planes which bound the parcel of the house described by it, and excludes the outside of lateral walls, at least when they constitute the walls of another room, as clearly as the words ‘first floor’ exclude the flooring of the story above it.'

That statement does not reach to the facts of the case at bar.

Apparently in the case at bar the window was of considerable size, upon the street floor, adjacent to the sidewalk. It is essential in order to light the room leased. Its exterior surface was as indispensable to to this end as its interior surface or its transparent substance. It would have been incompatible with the purposes of the lease and the valuable use of the room by the tenant for the landlord to have any right of control over the exterior of the window. The cleaning of both its outside and inside (in the absence of express agreement) would naturally be under the control of the tenant. It is manifest that the tenant of a room possesses the incidental right to use and decorate the interior walls, floor and ceiling in accordance with his own taste and needs so long as he does no harm to them. His lease covers not merely the cubical space bounded by the inner planes of walls, floor and ceiling. Such a tenancy implies the right to...