Duty to Correct Unsafe Condition Applied to Commercial Lease

Facts: A tenant that operated a tanning salon in a single, one-story building sent a written complaint about the leaky ceiling to the owner, which didn't fully repair the problem. The tenant's employee was hit by plaster that fell from the ceiling into her eye, causing her to fall and injure her shoulder. The tenant sued the owner.

The trial court ruled that the owner wasn't liable for the injury because: (1) under the lease, the tenant was responsible for making all repairs; and (2) the owner had no common law duty, statutory duty, or duty under the lease to repair unsafe conditions on the premises because the Massachusetts law that applied to incidents like this one did not apply to commercial leases. The owner asked the trial court for a judgment in its favor without a trial, which it granted. The tenant appealed.

Decision: The appeals court vacated the decision in favor of the owner.

Reasoning: The issue in this case was whether an owner's statutory duty to exercise reasonable care to correct an unsafe condition described in a written notice from a tenant applies to commercial leases.

In Massachusetts, after receiving notice of an unsafe condition that was not caused by its tenant but was in a portion of the premises controlled by the tenant, a property owner owes a duty to exercise reasonable care to remedy the unsafe condition, said the appeals court. And if the tenant or any person lawfully on the premises was injured as a result of the owner's failure to correct the unsafe condition within a reasonable time, the owner could be sued for damages. (An owner may not obtain a waiver of this duty in any lease or other rental agreement; any such waiver “shall be void and unenforceable,” noted the appeals court.)

Here, the appeals court ruled that an owner's duty under Massachusetts laws to exercise reasonable care to correct an unsafe condition described in a written notice from a tenant applied to commercial leases, also. Because the evidence in this commercial property case was sufficient for a jury to conclude that the tenant had given formal written notice of the leaky ceiling, that the leak was an unsafe condition, that the owner breached its statutory duty to remedy the unsafe condition, and that the breach was a substantial contributing cause of the employee's injury, the appeals court determined that the trial court erred in awarding the owner a judgment in its favor without a trial.

• Bishop v. TES Realty Trust, March 2011