Landlord Is Liable for Unseen Defects

Landlords have plenty to worry about besides the law. They have to collect rent, pay tax bills, keep the utilities in working order and find new tenants when a vacancy occurs.

But they also have to worry about legal liability for injuries to their tenants and guests. In California, a landlord may be legally responsible for injuries caused by defective conditions, even if he or she had no reason to believe there was anything wrong, and had taken all reasonable precautions to keep the rental property in a safe condition.

Defective Product

The legal theory is called “strict liability in tort.” It developed in the defective-product area when courts allowed people to sue manufacturers and retailers if they were injured by a defective product, even if no one was negligent or careless.

The purpose of strict liability, the California Supreme Court in a 1963 decision explained, is to ensure that “the costs of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by the manufacturers that put such products on the market rather than by the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves.”

In 1985, the California Supreme Court extended this theory to landlords when it imposed liability for injuries resulting from a “latent defect in the premises” (one not readily apparent) when the defect existed “at the time” the property was rented.

Let’s try this in English, with an example from the case in question. If a tenant is injured by a defect or dangerous condition--say, untempered-glass shower doors--the landlord can be required to pay for the injury even if the landlord didn’t know and shouldn’t have known that the untempered glass was there--as long as the defect was latent (a layperson couldn’t tell the difference between tempered and untempered glass) and existed at the time the tenant rented the apartment.

Traditionally, the concept of caveat emptor--let the buyer beware--applied. Landlords were only liable for injuries if they were negligent, that is, acted unreasonably--such as failing to discover a problem they should have found, or once discovered, forgetting to fix it.

The court explained part of the rationale for this legal policy: “The tenant purchasing housing for a limited period is in no position to inspect for latent defects in the increasingly complex modern apartment buildings or to bear the expense of repair whereas the landlord is in a much better position to inspect for and repair latent defects.”

Strong Words

But in a strongly worded dissent, then-Associate Justice Malcolm Lucas warned that the policy was unprecedented: “Any landlord, even one renting the family home for a year, will now be insurer for defects in any wire, screw, latch, cabinet door, pipe or other article on and in his premises at the time they are let, despite the fact that he neither installed the item nor had any knowledge or reason to know of the defect,” he wrote.

The court limited its ruling to latent defects and left open the question of liability if the defect is readily apparent.

Most other states that have considered this issue have refused to extend liability to landlords without proof of negligence, according to Lucas’ dissent. And a lower California court has refused to extend the reasoning to commercial leases.