Facts
- Tina Sargent, as administratrix of her four-year-old daughter’s estate, brought a wrongful-death action after the child fell from an exterior wooden stairway serving a second-floor apartment in a two-family building.
- The building was owned by Fabiola Ross, who lived in the first-floor unit; her son and daughter-in-law lived in the upstairs unit accessible only by the exterior stairway.
- Ross had caused the stairway to be added to the building about eight years before the accident.
- At the time of the fall, the child was in the upstairs apartment under the care of Ross’s daughter-in-law, who regularly babysat the child.
- Evidence permitted findings that the stairway was dangerously steep and that the railing was insufficient to prevent a child from falling over the side.
- The plaintiff sued the babysitter for negligent supervision and Ross for negligent construction and maintenance of the stairway.
- The jury found for the babysitter but returned a verdict against Ross.
Issues
- Whether a residential landlord may be held liable in tort for injuries caused by a defective or dangerous condition on leased premises when the condition does not fit within traditional exceptions to landlord nonliability (such as retained control, common areas, or concealed defects).
- Whether the evidence supported submitting Ross’s negligence to the jury and sustaining the verdict under a general reasonable-care standard.
Decision
- The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the judgment against Ross.
- The court rejected the traditional common-law rule limiting landlord liability to narrow exceptions and held that landlords, like other persons, must exercise reasonable care to avoid unreasonable risks of harm.
- The court upheld denial of Ross’s motions for nonsuit, directed verdict, judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and to set aside the verdict.
- The court concluded the jury could reasonably find Ross negligent based on the stairway’s dangerous steepness and inadequate railing, and the foreseeable use of the stairway by children.
Legal Principles
- Residential landlords are subject to ordinary negligence principles: duty, breach, causation, and damages, measured by reasonable care under all the circumstances.
- Liability does not depend on formalistic “control” classifications or fitting the case into traditional exceptions to landlord nonliability.
- Reasonable care is assessed by considering the likelihood of harm, the probable seriousness of injury, and the burden of reducing or avoiding the risk.
- A landlord who constructs and maintains a hazardous condition may be liable when injury to foreseeable users (including children) results from an unreasonable risk.
Conclusion
The court replaced the traditional doctrine of landlord tort immunity with a general duty of reasonable care, affirming a wrongful-death verdict where a landlord-installed exterior stairway posed an unreasonable and foreseeable risk of severe harm.