Quinn v. Perham
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by falling down a flight of stairs leading to a tenement occupied by the plaintiff as a tenant at will of the defendant.
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Tort, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by falling down a flight of stairs leading to a tenement occupied by the plaintiff as a tenant at will of the defendant. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Pitman,■ J., there was evidence that the tenement was one of several tenements let by the defendant in the same building, and was situated on the second floor of the same; that the stairs in question led from the first floor to the second floor in the rear of the building, and were owned and controlled by the defendant; that these stairs were used in common by all the tenants…
1Opinion of the CourtC. Allen, J.
The general rule, that a landlord does not by implication warrant the fitness for use of a demised tenement, is not applicable to a common passage owned by the landlord, by which several tenements demised by him are reached. Watkins v. Goodall, 138 Mass. 533. The landlord’s duty in respect to such passage is that of due care to keep it in such condition as it was in, or purported to be in, at the time of the letting. But he is not bound to change the mode of construction. Woods v. Naumkeag Steam Cotton Co. 134 Mass. 357. Lindsey v. Leighton, 150 Mass. 285. If the only access to demised…
2Cases cited3 opinions
- Woods v. Naumkeag Steam Cotton Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1883
- Watkins v. GoodallMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1885
- Lindsey v. LeightonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1889
3Cited by26 opinions
- Andrews v. WilliamsonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1906
- O'Malley v. Twenty-Five AssociatesMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1901
- Brandt v. RakauskasSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1930
- Shute v. BillsMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1906
- Griffin v. RudnickMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1937
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