## Facts

- Guido Flaim bought a single-family house to rent and orally leased it to Dan and Becky Stroud.
- The oral lease contained no express terms assigning repair obligations, habitability promises, or landlord control over the premises.
- The house had an interior basement stairway that was steep, had narrow treads, and lacked a handrail.
- The Strouds complained to Flaim that the stairway was dangerous, but no repairs or changes were made.
- Jacqueline Ortega visited the Strouds as a social guest, fell on the basement stairs, and suffered personal injuries.
- Ortega and her husband sued Flaim seeking damages, alleging liability based on negligence (reasonable care), implied warranty of habitability, nuisance, and strict liability.

## Issues

1. Whether Wyoming should abandon the common-law rules limiting landlord liability (as reflected in Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 356–362) and impose a general duty of reasonable care to tenants and their guests for conditions on leased premises.
2. Whether a landlord may be liable for injuries from a patent and known defect on the leased premises after receiving tenant complaints, where the lease is silent on repairs.
3. Whether liability could instead be imposed under implied warranty of habitability, nuisance, or strict liability.
4. Whether any asserted factual disputes (including causation) could defeat summary judgment if no duty exists as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Flaim.
- The court declined to abrogate the common-law limits on landlord liability and refused to adopt a general duty of reasonable care for conditions on premises in the tenant’s possession.
- Because the stair condition was patent and known, the claim did not fit within recognized exceptions imposing landlord liability for hidden or latent defects.
- The court rejected implied warranty of habitability, nuisance, and strict liability as alternative bases for imposing a duty under the circumstances.
- With no duty under any theory, disputes about breach or causation did not preclude judgment as a matter of law.

## Legal Principles

- A landlord is generally not liable for injuries caused by conditions on leased premises in the tenant’s possession and control, subject to limited exceptions.
- One key exception concerns concealed or latent defects known to the landlord and unknown to the tenant; patent or obvious defects do not trigger this duty.
- Wyoming declined to replace the Restatement-based limited-duty framework with a general negligence duty of reasonable care for landlords regarding premises defects.
- Absent a recognized duty, alternative labels such as implied warranty of habitability, nuisance, or strict liability do not create landlord liability for ordinary premises-defect injuries to a tenant’s guest.

## Conclusion

The court held that a tenant’s social guest injured by an obvious stairway defect on premises under tenant control could not recover from the landlord under negligence or alternative theories, and it reaffirmed Wyoming’s traditional, limited approach to landlord liability.


Ortega v. Flaim, 902 P.2d 199 (Wyo. 1995)