Minton v. Hardinger
| Decision Date | 09 December 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,No. 53669,53669,1 |
| Parties | Margaret MINTON, Appellant, v. Donald G. HARDINGER, Respondent |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
E. J. Murphy, Butler, for appellant.
R. S. McKenzie, McKenzie, Williams, Merrick, Beamer & Stubbs, Kansas City, for defendant-respondent.
This case involves the question of whether the landlord of a furnished upstairs apartment leased for immediate occupancy for a month's term is liable for injuries to the tenant received from an explosion caused by gas leaking from a defective valve connection or coupling near the bathroom heater.
Mr. and Mrs. Minton, a young married couple with a baby, rented a furnished apartment at 302 West Pine, Butler, Missouri, from the defendant for $35.00 per month. The apartment consisted of three rooms and a bath. It occupied the second floor of a two story house and was reached by an outside stairway. There was a larger apartment on the first floor, occupied by other tenants.
The defendant, who rented other apartments in Butler as well as this one, furnished the furniture, beds, lamps, refrigerator, cooking stove, hot water heater, a gas wall heater in the living room, and a small gas heater in the bathroom. The bathroom heater was attached to a gas outlet or riser coming up through the bathroom floor next to the baseboard, by means of a rubber hose two or three feet long. There were clamps at each end of the hose. The flow of gas was controlled by two hand-operated cocks or valves, one at the top of the riser just ahead of the rubber tube attachment and the other on the gas heater, just behind the attachment of the tube to the heater inlet.
The Mintons paid the first month's rent in advance on October 29, 1966. They moved some of their belongings into the apartment on October 30, and left a note at the defendant's home with checks in payment of the utilities--gas, water, and light--asking the defendant to have the utilities turned on for them. The Mintons then returned to Boonville, Missouri, where they had been living and did not return to Butler for another week.
Defendant retained a key to the apartment, for the reason, he said, that he thereby would not have to break the lock after a tenant had vacated the premises. When defendant saw the note from the Mintons, he unlocked the apartment so the utilities could be turned on, took the checks to the utilities office and arranged for the utilities to be turned on in the Minton's name. Defendant's tenants paid for their own utilities, which were metered to them through separate outside meters. 1 Defendant returned to the apartment to see that the utilities had been turned on and then relocked the door. 2 He did not check for gas leaks in the apartment.
The Mintons moved into the apartment about November 6, 1966. The first evening, the husband, Ron Minton, lighted the bathroom heater but 'the fumes were so bad he had to turn it right back off again.' He told Mrs. Minton to report the gas leak to the defendant. Mrs. Minton said she told the defendant the next day that 'the little heater in the bathroom leaked' and 'needed to be fixed', to which defendant made no response other than to get up from the table where he and his wife were having lunch and say that he had to go to work. The weather was warm during most of the time the Mintons occupied the apartment, but one day was cold and Mrs. Minton lighted the bathroom heater. She smelled fumes and 'couldn't leave it on long'. She told her husband about this and he told her not to light it anymore. Nothing further was done about the gas leak by anyone and the heater was not lighted again. From time to time the Mintons would smell gas in the bathroom, particularly when coming in from the outside. On November 26, 1966, Mr. Minton, after having retired for the night noticed the odor of gas in the apartment. He got up to investigate, turned on the light in the bathroom and the gas exploded, causing burns from which he died on December 17, 1966. Mrs. Minton testified she was cleaning the bathroom earlier the day of the explosion and smelled gas. She was 'pretty sure' she looked at the time to be sure both valves were turned off, but she did not know whether at the time of the explosion or afterwards the floor valve was open.
Another couple, the Laffoons, occupied the apartment for three months shortly prior to the Minton's occupancy. The Laffoons had noticed an odor of gas 'for a while and it began to get worse' and on about September 14, 1966, they reported this to defendant's wife, who admittedly was his agent as to the apartment. A few days before the Laffoons vacated the apartment, around October 14, Mr. Laffoon lighted the gas heater on a chilly night. The fumes 'were extremely bad' and he turned the heater off. That evening he decided to check the heater with a match flame. The valve next to the heater had no leak, but there was enough 'seepage' around the floor next to the other valve that with both valves turned off, a flame the size of a small pilot light burned near the riser. His wife described this as 'a flame around the bottom of the hose.' Laffoon also testified the screw was missing from one of the clamps. Plaintiff testified her husband said something to her 'about a screw being missing'.
The defendant and his wife denied any report from the Mintons or the Laffoons about a gas leak, although he said tenants would frequently report complaints to his wife, who would tell him. Defendant said that if a gas leak were reported to him by tenants the normal procedure would be for him to call the gas company, 3 although he had on occasion soaped gas lines in some of his apartments to see if there was a leak, but he had never done so in the Minton's apartment. He testified that he expected his tenants to take care of the appliances in the apartment, but said that if an appliance broke down, 'in the long run' he would have to 'fix them up'. He personally checked the gas connection in the bathroom after the explosion and fixed it by installing a metal connection instead of a rubber hose to the heater.
Mrs. Minton sued for the death of her husband and received a $25,000 verdict and judgment. She sued on the theory that defendant was negligent 'in maintaining a defective valve connection in the gas system in the apartment rented' to the Mintons. The case was submitted to the jury by plaintiff on an instruction reading as follows:
'Your verdict must be for plaintiff if you believe:
'First, there was a defective valve connection in the gas system and as a result the gas system was not reasonably safe and 'Second, the gas system was in the possession and control of defendant and was used by tenants of defendant with his consent, and
'Third, defendant knew, or by using reasonable care should have known, of this condition and
'Fourth, defendant failed to use ordinary care to make the gas system reasonably safe, and
'Fifth, defendant was thereby negligent, and
'Sixth, as a direct result of such negligence, Ronnie Minton died, unless you believe plaintiff is not entitled to recover by reason of Instruction No. 5.' 4
In response to defendant's after-trial motion the trial court set the judgment aside and entered judgment for defendant in accordance with defend...
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