Fitzmaurice v. Beacon Chambers Corp.

2 Mass. Supp. 195
CourtMassachusetts Housing Court
DecidedFebruary 17, 1981
DocketCiv. A. No. 11372
StatusPublished

This text of 2 Mass. Supp. 195 (Fitzmaurice v. Beacon Chambers Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Housing Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fitzmaurice v. Beacon Chambers Corp., 2 Mass. Supp. 195 (Mass. Super. Ct. 1981).

Opinion

FINDINGS AND ORDER

This is a petition under G.L. c. Ill, §127H to enforce the Sanitary Code, brought by residents of Beacon Chambers, .19 Myrtle Street, Boston, Massachusetts, to assure that their residence is restored to a decent, safe and sanitary condition. Plaintiffs were forced to vacate the premises due to fire in that building on October 13,1980, and they have been living in temporary [196]*196quarters since the fire. Plaintiffs further seek declaratory relief pursuant to G.L. c. 231A, § §1 et seq.

Plaintiffs have never abandoned the premises and wish to return to their home as soon as possible. Defendant has no present intention of allowing the plaintiffs to return to the residence.

Plaintiffs bring this action on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated.

Jurisdiction is granted this Courthy G.L. c. 185C, § 3; c. 111, § 127H; c. 184, § 18 and c. 186, §14.

The defendant Beacon Chambers Corporation owns and operates the building at 19 Myrtle Street, Boston, known as “Beacon Chambers”.

Plaintiffs rented rooms at Beacon Chambers and were residing there as of October 13, 1980.

On October 13, 1980 a fire broke out in Beacon Chambers which burned the third, fourth and fifth floors of this concrete structure, resulting in scorched walls and ceilings but not resulting in structural damage to the building.

On that same day, all tenants presently residing in the building, about three hundred and sixty-three (363) men, were evacuated; some tenants returned for a short period of time.

This Court has already ruled that since the lessor must make an implied warranty of habitability to the lessee as to the physical fitness of the leased premises at the time of the commencement of the tenancy, it follows that there was an implied duty upon the lessor to make repairs. This expansion of judicial doctrine flows as a direct consequence of Boston Housing Authority v. Hemingway, 363 Mass. 185 (1975). Hemingway did not state that a landlord has a duty to mitigate damages even if a tenant wrongfully abandons an apartment, but that too follows naturally from the transformation of common law concepts of landlord-tenant to one of contracts. The growth pattern of case law in the area of landlord-tenant is a documentation of the judicial process in action. “For every tendency, one seems to see a counter-tendency; for every rule its antinomy. Nothing is stable. Nothing absolute. All is fluid and changeable. There is an endless becoming.” Justice Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, 28 (1921).

Judicial definition of public policy in the area of housing is probably among the earliest contributions to the evolutionary process of the modem body of law. Thus, it was quite natural for the Hemingway court to superimpose the implied warranty of habitability onto a mass of recently enacted legislation which were designed to make the enforcement of state and local housing codes more effective.

Massachusetts has pioneered tenement house law by detailing minimum health and safety standards. Even though modern codes are more comprehensive, in 1868 Massachusetts enacted a statute, applicable only to Boston, patterned on the New York Tenement House Law of 1867. See, St. 1868, c. 281, § § 1-18. And while in recent years the City of Boston has obtained substantial success in applying traditional modes of housing code enforcement, there still remain gaps in the law, by which code enforcement is rendered ineffective. The Legislature has within the past decade attempted to close the gaps. G.L. c. 186, §13 provided additional protections for tenants-at-will by adding that “A tenancy-at-will of property occupied for dwelling purposes shall not be terminated by operation of law by the conveyance, transfer or leasing of the premises by the owner or landlord thereof.” If the Legislature has repudiated the doctrine that a tenancy-at-will can be terminated by operation of law, it is incongruous that a fire would terminate that tenancy, where the premises, although uninhabitable for the moment, can be restored at a reasonable cost.

The Supreme Judicial Court has repudiated traditional common-law doctrine of landlord-tenant incorporating both negligence and contract principles. But despite this modernization of (he law, the problem of providing decent housing for all citizens of the City of Boston, has thus far defied solution. All that the courts can attempt to achieve is to halt and reverse the deterioration of present housing stock. The phenomena associated with housing deterioration feed upon one another in a vicious circle [197]*197that is sustained by the social and psychological pathology of urban Boston. Since the causes of housing deterioration are as complex as they are varied, a judicial code enforcement mechanism cannot by itself attack them all. Preservation of the City’s housing stock demands a comprehensive program.

This Court declares that whenever any building shall be injured by fire without the fault of the tenant, the landlord shall repair the same as speedily as possible, unless the building has been totally destroyed or destroyed to such an extent that repair is unreasonable. If the damage is reasonably “correctible”, it does not make sense to this Court to excuse the landlord from repair, simply because the defect was caused by fire. To allow this excuse would be to perpetuate a gap through which persons ' may escape their contractual obligations.

As the Court has explained in previous decisions, in the nineteenth century, at common law, the landlord was allowed to . recover in an action for use and occupation even though the premises were entirely destroyed. In days gone by, at common law, absent agreement to the contrary, destruction of a building on land held under lease did not entitle the tenant to terminate his obligations under the lease or to recover any portion of the rental paid in advance, even though such destruction deprived him of the benefits of the lease. Massachusetts courts thought this'doctrine to be so oppressive that the doctrine of constructive eviction evolved. This Court draws guidance from that evolution. Where formerly the duty to restore was placed upon the tenant, a distinction was made between partial destruction of the leased premises as where leased land remained after the calamity, and total destruction as where the lease is of a single room or story of a building without land, and the entire building is destroyed. In the former case, the courts imposed upon the tenant the duty to pay rent. See, Fowler v. Bott, 6 Mass. 63 (1809); Roberts v. Lynn Ice Co., 187 Mass. 402 (1905). In the latter cases though, destruction being total, liability for rent ceased. See, Shawmut National Bank v. Boston, 118 Mass. 125 (1875); Ainsworth v. Mount Moriah Lodge, 172 Mass. 257 (1898). A similar rule prevailed in Roman law. See, Beckland, Casus and Frustration in Roman and Common Law, 46 Harv. L.R. 1281. Thus, the Massachusetts courts were departing from the landmark case of Paradme v. Jane, 82 Eng. Rep. 897 (1647). Even nineteenth century English courts could no longer countenance the absolute “undertaking” rule that Paradine imposed. See, Taylor v. Caldwell, 122 Eng. Rep. 309 (1863).

This Court seeks a doctrine that effectively and permanently eliminates the' erroneous assumption that recognition of the legal relevance of frustration due to fire requires deviation in every case from the express and implied contractual terms.

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Related

Commonwealth v. DeCotis
316 N.E.2d 748 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1974)
Shawmut National Bank v. City of Boston
118 Mass. 125 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1875)
Ainsworth v. Mount Moriah Lodge, Ancient, Free, & Accepted Masons
52 N.E. 81 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1898)
Roberts v. Lynn Ice Co.
73 N.E. 523 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1905)

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Bluebook (online)
2 Mass. Supp. 195, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fitzmaurice-v-beacon-chambers-corp-mahousct-1981.