Premises Liability: Court finds that landlord had no duty to prevent a neighbor from breaking into tenant’s room as such area was not under the landlord’s control

Plaintiff brought this action against her landlord claiming damages and emotional distress after items were repeatedly stolen from the plaintiff’s room. In her complaint and reply to the defendant’s special defense, the plaintiff alleged that one of her neighbors broke into her room multiple times and stole or damaged various items. The plaintiff further alleged that she reported such activity to the defendant-landlord, changed her locks, and called the police, but that the defendant failed to do anything about her neighbor’s actions. For these reasons, the plaintiff claimed that the defendant failed to fulfill her responsibilities as a landlord and subjected the plaintiff to intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The court provided that although the plaintiff did not clearly identify the legal theory under which she was seeking damages against the defendant, the court interpreted her complaint as alleging that the defendant failed to use reasonable care to prevent the plaintiff from being subject to the criminal activity of another tenant. A landlord has a duty “to use reasonable care to keep the common areas of its premises reasonably safe from intentional or criminal acts of others, including other tenants.” Wilcox v. Renaissance Management Co., Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. CV-00-0443595 (April 19, 2002). However, where the illegal actions take place outside an “area of exclusive control of the landlord, and [are] not caused by a known defect, there is no duty on the landlord to protect tenants.” Parker v. Elm City Communities Housing Authority of New Haven, Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. CV-21-6119481-S (June 12, 2023).

The court went on to state that in negligence cases in which a tortfeasor’s conduct is not the direct cause of the harm, legal causation is indistinguishable from an analysis of the extent of the tortfeasor’s duty to the plaintiff. The ultimate test of the duty is the reasonable foreseeability of the harm resulting from a failure to exercise reasonable care to keep the premises reasonably safe. The plaintiff in this case claimed that the defendant breached her duty by failing to prevent her neighbor from breaking into the plaintiff’s room and stealing her items. However, the court stated, all of the actions complained of occurred in an area over which the defendant did not have exclusive control. It stated that the defendant does not have a duty to prevent criminal activity in an area over which she had neither control nor access. The court provided that to impose such a duty would create strict liability for any injury that occurs on the landlord’s premises. For these reasons, the court found that the plaintiff’s beliefs were not sufficient to demonstrate that the defendant knew who was taking the plaintiff’s property or had an obligation to prevent the thefts. Therefore, the Superior Court holds that the plaintiff failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff and entered judgment in favor of the defendant. Geathers v. Zalman, NHH-CV24-5006446-S, 2024 WL 2829848, at *1 (Conn. Super. Ct. May 30, 2024)