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161 Mass. 504

Bertie v. Flagg

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1894-06-20

<p>Landlord and Tenant — Defective Drain.</p> <p>A landlord is not liable for a defect in a drain, which, in the course of a tenancy at will, is discovered by him, nor for failing to disclose it to the tenant, if the defect is unknown to the latter.</p>

Relies on Cutter v. Hamlen · Cowen v. Sunderland · Minor v. Sharon

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1894-06-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently December 1938

10 state decisions

3018941900191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Holmes, J.

¶1The declaration in this case alleges that the defendant was the owner and landlord of a house occupied by the plaintiff’s intestate as tenant at will; that in the course of making other repairs he discovered that the drain was in bad condition and needed certain repairs; that he neglected to repair it, covered it up, and did not inform the intestate; and that “ by reason of said negligence . . . the plaintiff’s intestate, being ignorant of the condition of said drain, contracted typhoid fever ” from it. The rest is only coloring. It is not alleged that the landlord undertook to repair the drain and did the work improperly, or that he misled the tenant by any representation on the matter.

¶2It is not argued that a landlord, as such, is bound to make repairs which he has not agreed to make, or to remedy defects *506which arise in the course of a tenancy. McKeon v. Cutter, 156 Mass. 296. But it is said that the defendant is liable for not disclosing the defect, on the same principle that a man was held liable for letting a dwelling-house known by him to be infected with small-pox without disclosing it, in Minor v. Sharon, 112 Mass. 477. See also Cowen v. Sunderland, 145 Mass. 363; Cutter v. Hamlen, 147 Mass. 471; and Martin v. Richards, 155 Mass. 381.

¶3But this defect was an ordinary defect in the drain in use on the premises, and the danger was the ordinary danger from that source. It was discovered in the course of a tenancy at will. We are of opinion that the landlord was under no obligation to repair it, and if we are to take it that the plaintiff was ignorant of the defect as well as of the failure to repair it, notwithstanding the allegation that, the defendant “ refused ” to make the necessary repairs, we are of opinion that he was under no obligation to disclose it. Demurrer sustained.

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