Stone v. Lewis

• Decision Date: 18 June 1913
• Citation: 215 Mass. 594,104 N.E. 284
• Parties: STONE v. LEWIS et al. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

215 Mass. 594

104 N.E. 284

STONE v. LEWIS et al. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

June 18, 1913

COUNSEL

Sanford Botes, of Boston, for plaintiffs.

H. N Allin, of Boston, for defendant.

OPINION

RUGG C.J.

The female plaintiff (who will hereafter be referred to as the plaintiff) seeks to recover for personal injuries sustained by her, and her husband for expenses incurred by him arising out of the same injury. There was evidence tending to show that the plaintiff, in descending the stairs from a room in a building on Essex street in Boston, whither she had gone in the dusk of a closing day to pay dues to a society, fell by reason of absence of artificial light in the hallway. None was provided for in the structure of the building. The building was owned by the defendant Lewis, but was leased wholly to the defendant Russo. The condition of the stairs and hallways had remained in this respect the same during the period of two successive leases from Lewis to Russo, covering nearly ten years. The lease provided that repairs should be made by the lessee. There was evidence tending to show that the building had at first been rented by Russo for tenements for living purposes, but more recently a part had been used for business purposes, one of the tenants being the society to whose room the plaintiff had been on the day of the accident. No request had ever been made of the defendant to change the condition of the halls or stairways as to artificial light.

The question is whether there is any evidence upon which to ground liability of the defendant Lewis. When the landowner has given up entire control of premises to a lessee 'this court has never gone further than to hold [him] liable when the use from which the damage or nuisance necessarily ensues was plainly contemplated by the lease.' Clifford v. Atlantic Cotton Mills, 146 Mass. 47, 49, 15 N.E. 84, 4 Am. St. Rep. 279; Taylor v Loring, 201 Mass. 283, 285, 87 N.E. 469. The only basis for charging the defendant Lewis with negligence is that it may be found to be a nuisance to make no provision for artificially lighting the hallway. It hardly could be contended that as between the owner and the lessee there was any obligation implied by law on the former to light the stairways in the absence of any express contract. It is a familiar principle of the law of landlord and tenant that the latter takes the premises as he finds them, in the absence of fraud or misrepresentation or concealed defects as to which the landlord owes a duty of information. Hawkes v Broadwalk Shoe Co., 207 Mass. 117, 92 N.E. 1017; Bowe v. Hunking, 135 Mass. 380, 46 Am. Rep. 471; Roche v. Sawyer, 176 Mass. 71, 57 N.E. 216. In the case at bar the lack of provision for artificial lighting was a part of the construction of the building and was perfectly obvious and must have been well understood by both the defendants and all subtenants. The same principle applies to the relation between Russo as lessee of the entire building and the society to which he had rented the room from which the plaintiff was coming at the time of her injury. If the plaintiff in this regard has only the same right of recovery for negligence that the tenant whose room she visited would have had there is no liability. The right of the plaintiff as one of the general public coming to the building under the limited invitation held out by reason of the character of the building was no broader than the obligation assumed by the landlord expressly or by fair intendment. There was no change in the premises in the respect which caused the injury to the plaintiff at any time. There was no ground for recovery...