## Facts

- Stuart and Ellen Garfield owned a three-family house in Lynn, Massachusetts; they rented a second-floor apartment (including a front porch) to Sherry Baker.
- Charles Scott, Baker’s social guest, came to help her pack for a move.
- The landlords had been on the porch after the lease began and previously repaired one loose section of railing, but not another section.
- The landlords told Baker they planned to repair the porches but did not do so before the incident.
- Scott leaned on the porch railing to shake out a rug; the railing gave way and he fell from the second-floor porch, suffering serious injuries.
- Evidence supported findings that the porch railing did not comply with minimum standards under applicable state building and sanitary codes.
- After the accident, the railing was preserved, but porch columns to which it had been attached were discarded by a contractor hired by the landlord despite anticipated litigation.

## Issues

1. Whether a lawful visitor (not the tenant) may recover personal injury damages for a landlord’s breach of the implied warranty of habitability.
2. Whether the warranty claim required jury findings, as threshold matters, that the landlords had notice of the defect and that the porch was “vital to the use of the demised premises,” and whether denial of directed verdict/JNOV was error.
3. Whether the trial court erred in finding spoliation and imposing sanctions based on disposal of porch columns.
4. Whether medical bills were properly admitted in full billed amounts (with insurer payments redacted) and whether the collateral source rule barred evidence of insurer payments.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment for Scott.
- A lawful visitor on leased property may recover for personal injuries caused by a breach of the implied warranty of habitability.
- The trial judge properly denied the landlords’ directed verdict and JNOV motions on the warranty claim.
- The judge did not err by declining to instruct that the jury must find landlord notice or that the porch was “vital” to the premises’ use.
- The spoliation finding and sanctions were upheld because the landlord controlled the evidence and had a duty to preserve it once litigation was likely.
- Admission of medical bills in redacted billed amounts was proper under the medical-bills statute, and the collateral source rule barred evidence of insurer payments.

## Legal Principles

- A landlord’s implied warranty of habitability, grounded in minimum housing safety standards and code compliance, supports recovery for personal injuries caused by a breach.
- Warranty liability for code-violative conditions causing injury is not conditioned on proving landlord notice as a threshold element in the manner typical of negligence.
- A plaintiff need not show, as a prerequisite to warranty liability, that the defective feature was “vital to the use of the demised premises.”
- Spoliation sanctions may be imposed when a party with control of evidence fails to preserve it after knowing litigation is likely and the evidence may be important.
- Medical bills are admissible as evidence of fair and reasonable medical charges when presented in statutory form; the collateral source rule generally bars reducing damages by showing payments from insurance or other third-party sources.

## Conclusion

The court held that lawful visitors are within the class protected by the landlord’s implied warranty of habitability and may recover for bodily injury caused by code-noncompliant conditions, while also affirming trial rulings rejecting notice/vital-use threshold instructions, imposing spoliation sanctions, and applying the collateral source rule to medical expense evidence.


Scott v. Garfield, 912 N.E.2d 1000 (Mass. 2009)