Weiler v. Hooshiari

• Decision Date: 10 February 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–003.,10–003.
• Citation: 19 A.3d 124,2011 VT 16
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court
• Parties: Karen WEILERv.Richard HOOSHIARI.

19 A.3d 124

2011 VT 16

Karen WEILER

v.Richard HOOSHIARI.

No. 10–003.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

Feb. 10, 2011.

Charles S. Martin of Martin & Associates, Barre, for Plaintiff–Appellee/Cross–Appellant.Joslyn L. Wilschek of Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer PC, Montpelier, for Defendant–Appellant/Cross–Appellee.Present: REIBER, C.J., DOOLEY, JOHNSON, SKOGLUND and BURGESS, JJ.BURGESS, J.

¶ 1. Defendant Richard Hooshiari appeals from the trial court's decision to grant judgment in favor of his former tenant, plaintiff Karen Weiler. The court found that landlord violated the implied warranty of habitability when heavy snow and ice fell from the roof of tenant's residence onto her parking place, destroying her car. The court awarded damages measured by the difference between the value of the car before the incident and its sale price afterwards. Landlord contends that the implied warranty of habitability does not extend to automobiles and that even if the implied warranty of habitability were to apply, the court impermissibly granted consequential damages beyond the value of the lease as warranted. Tenant cross-claims, arguing that her belated request to add a claim of negligence should have been granted under Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 15. We hold that the implied warranty of habitability does not protect tenant's automobile and therefore reverse, while upholding the trial court's denial of the cross-claim.

¶ 2. The following facts are uncontested. On April 16, 2007, tenant and landlord entered into a residential lease for an apartment in downtown Montpelier. The lease provided tenant with off-street parking. Tenant moved into the apartment with her children, where she resided through February 8, 2008, parking in a designated space. On that day, an accumulation of snow and ice slid off the dwelling's steep roof and onto her car, causing thousands of dollars in damages. Tenant brought a breach of contract action demanding compensation for the loss of the car. At the beginning of the case, the court inquired if tenant was pursuing a negligence claim against landlord and was advised she was not. Moments before the end of her case, tenant moved under Rule 15 to amend her complaint to include a claim of negligence, and the court denied her motion.

¶ 3. The trial court ultimately held that, although the lease explicitly disclaimed landlord responsibility for damage to tenant property,¹ that provision was voided by the implied warranty of habitability. The court reasoned that the implied warranty of habitability applied to personal property “in these narrow circumstances” where the facts were easy to determine. The court concluded that, under Restatement (Second) of Property: Landlord and Tenant § 17.6 (1977) (discussing landlord's duties to repair dangerous conditions), consequential damages were recoverable.

¶ 4. Whether the warranty of habitability applies in this situation and, if so, whether the trial court's damage award was calculated using the proper standard, are questions of law. Questions of law are reviewed de novo. Hubbard v. Metro. Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 2007 VT 121, ¶ 6, 182 Vt. 501, 944 A.2d 891. The trial court's denial of plaintiff's motion to amend the complaint is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Hunters, Anglers & Trappers Ass'n of Vt., Inc. v. Winooski Valley Park Dist., 2006 VT 82, ¶ 17, 181 Vt. 12, 913 A.2d 391.

¶ 5. Vermont recognized the implied warranty of habitability as applied to leaseholds in Hilder v. St. Peter, where the Court declared that “[t]he modern view [of the landlord-tenant relationship] favors a new approach which recognizes that a lease is essentially a contract between the landlord and the tenant wherein the landlord promises to deliver and maintain the demised premises in habitable condition and the tenant promises to pay rent.” 144 Vt. 150, 158–59, 478 A.2d 202, 208 (1984) (quotation omitted). In light of this relationship, Hilder held that every lease, regardless of its express conditions, includes an implied warranty of habitability. Id. at 159–60, 478 A.2d at 208. The landlord is understood to promise to provide and maintain “premises that are safe, clean and fit for human habitation.” Id. at 159, 478 A.2d at 208. Hilder further explained that “the implied warranty of habitability covers all latent and patent defects in the essential facilities of the residential unit,” specified as those “facilities vital to the use of the premises for residential purposes.” Id. at 160, 478 A.2d at 208 (quotation omitted). The facts of Hilder involved a landlord who deliberately refused to remedy a persistently clogged toilet, severe water leakage, and a sewage spill, and was deemed in violation of the implied warranty of habitability. Id. at 156, 165, 478 A.2d at 206, 211.

¶ 6. Failure to protect a tenant's car does not implicate this warranty. By its own terms, as recognized in the case law and as later generally codified in statute, the warranty of habitability promises that the landlord will “deliver over and maintain, throughout the period of the tenancy, premises that are safe, clean and fit for human habitation.” 9 V.S.A. § 4457(a); Hilder, 144 Vt. at 159, 478 A.2d at 208.² That the warranty does not extend to personal property is reflected by the reference in Hilder to “[e]ssential facilities ... vital to ... residential purposes.” 144 Vt. at 160, 478 A.2d at 208 (quotation omitted). This is followed by a description of the substantial housing code violations sufficient for a prima facie case of breach, with clarification that de minimis violations not affecting the “health or safety of the tenant” would not sustain a claimed breach of warranty. Id. at 160, 478 A.2d at 209–10 (quotation omitted). Further applications of the habitability warranty to date have been limited to circumstances of similar failures to meet personal safety and health standards for tenant occupation of the premises. See, e.g., Willard, 2005 VT 69, ¶ 1, 178 Vt. 300, 882 A.2d 1213 (unsafe drinking water); Nepveu v. Rau, 155 Vt. 373, 375, 583 A.2d 1273, 1274 (1990) (broken toilet); Gokey v. Bessette, 154 Vt. 560, 565, 580 A.2d 488, 492 (1990) (broken septic and heat systems and leaky roof); Birkenhead v. Coombs, 143 Vt. 167, 173, 465 A.2d 244, 246–47 (1983) (deteriorating walls, soiled carpet, disconnected heat and electricity, and inadequate plumbing).

¶ 7. In contrast, the claim here involves no compromise to tenant's personal health and safety, but rather damage to her personal property unrelated to landlord's implied or statutory guarantee of premises “safe, clean and fit for human habitation.” 9 V.S.A. § 4457(a); Hilder, 144 Vt. at 159, 478 A.2d at 208. Tenant maintains that a conventional lifestyle involving children and employment requires ready transportation, meaning that a secure parking place is a critical component of human habitation. While it may be exceptionally inconvenient not to have access to a parking space and therefore access to a car, the absence of a parking space is not an equivalent threat to health and safety as that posed by clogged toilets, raw sewage, and poisoned water. If, as tenant posits, private parking is so vital to habitability as to fall within the warranty, every residential lease would have to guarantee a parking place. This is neither necessary nor the law as outlined by the cases or the statute, and we decline to extend the habitability warranty to parking. ³

¶ 8. Tenant argues further that the habitability warranty should be coextensive with terms of the lease that include a parking place with the residence. Again, we disagree. The warranty applies to premises being “safe, clean and fit for human habitation.” 9 V.S.A. § 4457(a); Hilder, 144 Vt. at 159, 478 A.2d at 208. Leases may include many amenities that are clearly beyond such a basic threshold. Tenant points to no jurisdiction that extends the warranty of habitability to cover all lease provisions beyond essential sanitation and tenant safety. New York, a state with a similar warranty of habitability standard to our own, has rejected using a lease in this way. See Solow v. Wellner, 86 N.Y.2d 582, 635 N.Y.S.2d 132, 658 N.E.2d 1005, 1008 (1995).

¶ 9. Tenant's theory of recovery, as well as the trial court's damage award, also ignore the longstanding distinction between contract and tort law. Leases are contracts, and damages for breach generally turn on the respective promises of the parties and are limited to recovery of the benefit of the bargain. Claims for personal injury or property damage sound in tort, typically in an action for negligent breach of a duty of care, and depend on comparative degrees of fault. That the habitability warranty is a creature of contract was recognized in Hilder, which declared:

Because we hold that the lease of a residential dwelling creates a contractual relationship between the landlord and tenant, the standard contract remedies of rescission, reformation and damages are available to the tenant when suing for breach of the implied warranty of habitability. The measure of damages shall be the difference between the value of the dwelling as warranted and the value of the dwelling as it exists in its defective condition.

144 Vt. at 161, 478 A.2d at 209 (citation omitted).⁴ More recently, we reiterated that such damages are measured as “the difference in value between the agreed-upon rent for [the] unit in habitable condition, and the value of the same unit with habitability defects.” Willard, 2005 VT 69, ¶ 30, 178 Vt. 300, 882 A.2d 1213.

¶ 10. Maintaining the distinction between contract and tort claims in Favreau v. Miller, we declined to extend the implied warranty of habitability to personal injuries. 156 Vt. 222, 591 A.2d 68 (1991). Favreau recognized that remedies at law already exist for personal injuries and that “the concepts of tort and negligence law provide the more straightforward way to describe the respective duties and liabilities of ...