## Facts

- Landlords leased a New York City commercial store at 48 Front Street to Jackson for three years starting May 1, 1866, at $2,600 annual rent payable quarterly.
- The lease contained no landlord covenant to repair; it required the tenant to keep Croton water and gas pipes in repair.
- The premises included a five-story store and a small one-story rear extension with a glass roof used as an office.
- Around March 1867, the glass roof began to leak; over time it leaked badly during rain due to wear/decay at joints between the glass and frame.
- The tenant and his subtenants made no repairs to the glass roof after the leaks began.
- On May 1, 1868, the tenant gave written notice that the premises were untenantable due to the leaking roof and purported to surrender possession.
- The landlords sued to recover a quarter’s rent allegedly due after the tenant’s notice and purported surrender.

## Issues

1. Whether gradual deterioration and leaking from ordinary exposure and age constituted a statutory “injury” making the building “untenantable and unfit for occupancy,” thereby excusing rent and permitting surrender.
2. Whether, absent a landlord repair covenant, the condition was instead within the tenant’s duty to make ordinary tenantable repairs.

## Decision

- The court affirmed judgment for the landlords for the unpaid quarter’s rent.
- The leaking roof caused by ordinary wear and decay was not an “injury” within the rent-relief statute.
- The statute was construed to cover destruction or sudden, extraordinary injury occurring without the tenant’s fault or neglect, not gradual deterioration remediable by ordinary repairs.
- Because the condition was consistent with a need for tenantable repairs, the tenant could not avoid rent by unilateral surrender.

## Legal Principles

- Absent an express covenant, a landlord has no general duty to repair leased premises; the tenant remains liable for rent even if premises become unusable, unless altered by statute or agreement.
- A tenant has an implied duty to make “tenantable repairs” to prevent deterioration of the landlord’s reversionary interest.
- Statutory rent discharge for premises “destroyed” or “so injured by the elements or any other cause as to be untenantable and unfit for occupancy” applies to destruction or extraordinary injury, not gradual decay from ordinary use and exposure.
- A tenant cannot invoke statutory rent relief where untenantability results from conditions correctable by ordinary repairs and the tenant fails to perform reasonable maintenance.

## Conclusion

Because the asserted untenantability resulted from gradual deterioration of a glass roof and was the type of condition addressed by ordinary tenantable repairs rather than destruction or extraordinary injury, the tenant remained liable for rent and could not terminate liability by surrendering possession.


Suydam v. Jackson, 54 N.Y. 450 (1873)