Thomas v. Stewart

Like the majority, I am reluctant to consider such a sweeping change in our common law as completely abandoning the doctrine of caveat lessee for landlords without fully developed facts and briefing accompanied by appropriate amicus curiae briefs. I am also reluctant to consider adopting exceptions to the doctrine such as the retention-of-control and latent defect exceptions without comparable briefing.

Yet, it has been almost thirty years since the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act was first proposed in 1972. The uniform act provided that states should require residential landlords…