Webel v. Yale University

• Decision Date: 08 June 1939
• Citation: 125 Conn. 515,7 A.2d 215
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: WEBEL v. YALE UNIVERSITY et al.

7 A.2d 215

125 Conn. 515

WEBEL v. YALE UNIVERSITY et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 8, 1939

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Earnest C. Simpson Judge.

Action by Mamie Webel against Yale University and others to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendants, landlord and tenants. A demurrer to the complaint of the named defendant was sustained, and, the plaintiff failing to plead further judgment was rendered for such defendant, and the plaintiff appeals.

Error and cause remanded.

John Clark FitzGerald, David E. FitzGerald, and David E. FitzGerald, Jr., all of New Haven, for appellant.

M. J Blumenfeld, of Hartford, for appellee Yale University.

Argued Before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, AVERY, BROWN, and JENNINGS, JJ.

MALTBIE Chief Justice.

This case is an appeal from a judgment entered upon the sustaining of a demurrer to the complaint filed by the defendant Yale University. The complaint contained the following allegations: The plaintiff was in a beauty shop conducted by the defendants Segal, for the purpose of having her hair waved. She went into the ladies' room connected with the shop and on leaving it fell at the entrance. The floor of the ladies' room was some seven inches higher than the floor of the shop, the door extending down to the level of the shop floor. The building is owned by Yale University, to which we shall hereafter refer as the defendant, and the Segals were occupying it at the time of and had occupied it for a long time Before , the accident as lessees of the defendant. The structural condition at the entrance to the ladies' room existed when the shop was leased to the Segals and ‘ it was intended by the defendant Yale University that said condition be continued in the manner and for the purpose set out and used by said defendants, which use for such purposes and in such a manner was a nuisance.’

In Bergman v. Jacob, 125 Conn. 486, 7 A.2d 219, which was an action in which a customer in a restaurant sought to recover damages against the lessor of the premises for injuries suffered from a fall down a stairway, we quoted from previous decisions of this court to the effect that where an owner leases premises upon which there is a nuisance which will continue if they are used for the purpose and in the manner intended, he is liable for damages resulting from that nuisance. None of the cases referred to in that opinion involved the question whether one who enters upon leased premises, at the express or implied invitation of the lessee, to do business with him there, can recover against the owner of the property for defective conditions existing thereon.

‘ A lease is, in effect, a conveyance of an interest in the leased premises. There is no warranty on the part of the landlord that they are safe or fit for habitation. The lessee takes exclusive possession of the premises and accepts them as they are. He assumes the risks of any structural defects except such as he could not discern with reasonable diligence, and with a knowledge of which the landlord is chargeable.’ White v. DeVito Realty Co., 120 Conn. 331, 334, 180 A. 461, 462; Aprile v. Colonial Trust Co., 118 Conn. 573, 577, 173 A. 237. The reason of the rule ‘ is that as to obvious risks the tenant by accepting the premises as they appear brings himself equitably within the rule volenti non fit injuria.’ Hearn v. E. E. Hilliard Co., 99 Conn. 666, 671, 122 A. 567, 569; Gibson v. Hoppman, 108 Conn. 401, 410, 143 A. 635, 75 A.L.R. 148; Brandt v. Rakauskas, 112 Conn. 69, 73, 151 A. 315. In Hearn v. Hilliard Co., supra, we held that this rule of the assumption of risk applied as regards a minor child of the tenant. Newman v. Golden, 108 Conn. 676, 678, 144 A. 467.

It has been generally held that persons who go upon leased premises upon the invitation or license of the tenant enter them under a right derived from him and have no greater rights to recover for an injury than he would have, and that, consequently, if the tenant could not recover for a defective condition thereon, neither could a person visiting them upon his express or implied invitation. 16 R.C.L., p. 1067; note, 110 A.L.R. 756. Tiffany gives two reasons for this rule: One is that otherwise the tenant by inviting persons to enter upon the premises could impose liabilities upon the landlord to an indefinite extent, and the second, that such persons have no right to expect the landlord, with whom they are not in privity, to exercise any care to protect them from injury. 1 Tiffany, Landlord & Tenant, p. 650. If, however, the premises are used for the purpose and in the manner intended, the extent of the liability of the landlord would be restricted to situations he had or reasonably ought to have had in mind when he made the lease. Nor is liability in negligence, at least, necessarily dependent on a pre-existing privity in legal relationship between the person injured and the person causing the injury. Swentusky v. Prudential Ins. Co., 116 Conn. 526, 533, 165 A. 686; Dean v. Hershowitz, 119 Conn. 398, 408, 177 A. 262.

In Reardon v. Shimelman, 102 Conn. 383, 128 A. 705, 39 A.L.R. 287, we directly repudiated the doctrine that one who comes upon premises at the invitation of a tenant can have no greater right to recover for an injury suffered thereon than would the tenant, saying (102 Conn. page 386, 128 A. page 706, 39 A.L.R. 287) that the obligation of a landlord to keep reasonably safe the common approaches of a tenement he rents extends ‘ also to all those who have lawful occasion to visit the tenants for social or business purposes; a right of ingress and egress for all such persons is essential, not merely to the enjoyment of the rented premises by the tenants, but also to the renting of them by the landlord; it is part of that for the use of which he is paid, and it exists for the mutual benefit of landlord and tenants alike. * * * The basis of the liability of the landlord to those visiting the premises for social purposes does not rest primarily upon an express or implied invitation from one of the tenants, though no doubt that might be found here, but upon the broader principle, that: ‘ Where the privilege of user exists for the common interest or mutual advantage of both parties, it will be held to be a case of invitation; but if it exists for the mere pleasure and benefit of the party exercising the privilege, it will be held to be a case of license.’ ' It is true that in that case we were dealing with a defective condition of a common approach to a tenement house, but under the principle there stated one who comes upon leased premises at the invitation of the tenant may have, as regards defects therein, other rights than a tenant would have. Colorado Mortgage & Investment Co. v. Giacomini, 55 Colo. 540, 559, 136 P. 1039, L.R.A.1915B, 364. Indeed, from the standpoint of practical justice, there are strong reasons for applying the doctrine in such a case. The freedom from liability of the landlord to the tenant for defects in the premises is based upon the notice of the conditions of the premises which the tenant has or with which he is chargeable; but it certainly is not just to charge one who visits the premises at the invitation of the tenant with the knowledge which the tenant has or with which he is chargeable when the invitee may have neither actual notice nor, upon the facts known or reasonably observable by him, be chargeable with notice. Gibson v. Hoppman, 108 Conn. 401, 410, 143 A. 635, 75 A.L.R. 148.

Even where the rule that one who visits the premises at the invitation of a tenant has no greater rights to recover against the landlord than would the tenant applies, an exception has not infrequently been made and the landlord has been held liable to persons who visit them at the express or implied invitation of the tenant for injuries due to defects in the leased premises existing at the time the lease was made. In a number of the cases the premises in question were let for a use which involved a general invitation to the public to visit them; thus in Edwards v. New York, & H. R. Co., 98 N.Y. 245, 50 Am.Rep. 659, the premises were leased for an exhibition open to the general public; in Camp v. Wood, 76 N.Y. 92 32 Am.Rep. 282, the premises were let for a dance open to the public; in Barrett v. Lake Ontario Beach Imp. Co., 174 N.Y. 310, 66 N.E. 968,61 L.R.A. 829; in Joyce v. Martin, 15 R.I. 558, 10 A. 620, in Albert v. State, 66 Md. 325, 7 A. 697,59 Am.Rep. 159, the premises were used as a beach resort, and in Folkman v. Lauer, 244 Pa. 605, 91 A. 218, the injury occurred as the result of the collapse of a grandstand at a baseball park. On the other hand, in Swords v. Edwards, 59 N.Y. 28, 17 Am.Rep. 295, a longshoreman recovered for injuries on a leased pier, and while that case was criticized and limited in the majority opinion in Edwards v. New York & H. R. Co., supra, it was cited as authority in Barrett v. Lake Ontario Beach Imp. Co., supra, and has been quite generally referred to in other states as sustaining a recovery in like actions. In Warner v. Lucey, 207 A.D. 241, 201 N.Y.S. 658, a plaintiff was permitted to recover where he went to a public garage to assist in getting a car stored there by one of its patrons, and this case was affirmed 238 N.Y. 638, 144 N.E. 924. In Copley v. Balle, 9 Kan.App. 465, 60 P. 656, the plaintiff was a visitor to a hotel which had been leased from the defendant, and in Colorado Mortgage &...