## Facts

- Landlords owned and leased apartments to residential tenants in a building near other premises the landlords also controlled.
- The landlords leased the nearby premises to commercial tenants operating a bar/cocktail lounge.
- The lounge lease contained a noise-control clause requiring entertainment to be conducted so it could not be heard outside and would not disturb residents.
- The lounge regularly played amplified music late at night (roughly 9:30 p.m. to 1:30–2:00 a.m., several nights per week).
- The music and associated disturbances penetrated the residential building and substantially interfered with tenants’ use of their apartments.
- Tenants repeatedly complained to the landlords; the landlords acknowledged the problem and promised to correct it but did not effectively stop the disturbances.
- After the problem persisted, each tenant vacated within a reasonable time and withheld rent.
- Landlords filed consolidated actions for rent; tenants asserted constructive eviction based on breach of the implied covenant of quiet enjoyment.

## Issues

1. Whether a landlord breaches the implied covenant of quiet enjoyment, amounting to constructive eviction, when severe disturbances are caused by a commercial tenant’s operations that the landlord authorized and could control but failed to abate.
2. Whether constructive eviction based on breach of quiet enjoyment requires proof that the landlord intended to deprive the tenant of occupancy.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed judgments for the tenants.
- The court held the tenants were constructively evicted and were not liable for rent accruing after they vacated.
- The court attributed the ongoing lounge noise to the landlords because it was a foreseeable result of the leasing arrangement and within the landlords’ power to control.
- The court rejected a strict intent requirement; liability turned on the landlords’ conduct and omissions and their consequences, not subjective purpose.

## Legal Principles

- Residential leases include an implied covenant (warranty) of quiet enjoyment.
- Constructive eviction occurs when a landlord’s breach substantially interferes with the tenant’s use and enjoyment for a substantial time and the tenant vacates within a reasonable time.
- A landlord may breach quiet enjoyment without intending to evict where the interference is the natural and probable consequence of what the landlord did, failed to do, or permitted to be done.
- Disturbances caused by another tenant may be treated as the landlord’s responsibility when the landlord has the right and ability to control the offending conduct and fails to exercise that control.
- Substantial interference need not originate within the same building if the source is on premises under the landlord’s control and materially affects the leased dwelling.

## Conclusion

The court held that severe, persistent nighttime noise from a nearby lounge leased by the same landlords, coupled with the landlords’ failure to use available control to stop it, breached the tenants’ quiet enjoyment and constituted constructive eviction, excusing further rent once the tenants promptly vacated.


Blackett v. Olanoff, 371 Mass. 714, 358 N.E.2d 817 (Mass. 1977)