Ligouri v. Nguyen

23 Mass. L. Rptr. 57
CourtMassachusetts Superior Court
DecidedAugust 9, 2007
DocketNo. 0600424
StatusPublished

This text of 23 Mass. L. Rptr. 57 (Ligouri v. Nguyen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ligouri v. Nguyen, 23 Mass. L. Rptr. 57 (Mass. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

Agnes, Peter W., J.

This is a civil action in which the third-party plaintiffs, the Nguyens, seek indemnification from the third-party defendant, Charter Communications Entertainment, I, LLC, (“Charter”) for the alleged injury of a tenant at a multiple dwelling unit owned by the Nguyens. The third-party plaintiffs rely on G.L.c. 166A, §22 which they maintain creates a right of indemnification on their behalf. Both the third-party plaintiff and the third-party defendant have filed cross motions for summary judgment under Mass.RCiv.P. 56. Because there are no material facts in dispute and the third-party defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, the Third-Party Defendant’s motion is ALLOWED and the Third-Party Plaintiffs’ motion is DENIED.

BACKGROUND

The essential facts are not in dispute. The Nguyens own a multiple dwelling unit in the city of Worcester where the plaintiff, Kevin Ligouri, was allegedly injured on October 17, 2003. Mr. Ligouri’s amended complaint alleged that he was injured when the walker he was using to assist him down an outside staircase from his first floor apartment became entangled in cable wires installed by Charter causing him to fall. Mr. Ligouri brought an action against the Nguyens for his injury and his wife, Heidi Ligouri, also sued for loss of consortium. The Nguyens then sued Charter for (1) indemnification and (2) contribution1 under G.L.c. 166A, §22. Neither the plaintiffs, nor the third-party plaintiffs contacted Charter prior to Mr. Ligouri’s accident to complain of safety concerns regarding the wires. The question before the court does not concern the merits of the underlying tort action. Instead, the motions call upon the court to examine G.L.c. 166A, section 22 and to determine its meaning.

DISCUSSION

A. Role of the court in statutory interpretation.

The dispute in this case centers on the interpretation of G.L.c. 166A, §22 which states in relevant part:

(PARAGRAPH 2.) An operator who affixes, or causes to be affixed, CATV [Cable Antenna Television] system facilities to the dwelling of a tenant . . . shall indemnify the landlord of such dwelling for any damage arising out of such actions, and shall not interfere with the safety, functioning, appearance or use of such dwelling . . .
(PARAGRAPH 7.) An owner whose property is injuriously affected by occupation of the ground or air or otherwise by such construction of CATV system facilities may recover damages therefor from the operator pursuant to chapter seventy-nine . . .
(PARAGRAPH 8.) A cable television operator shall indemnify the landlord for any damages caused by the installation, operation or removal of cable television facilities. An owner of property may require that the installation of cable television facilities confirm to such reasonable conditions as are necessary to protect the safety, functioning and appearance of the premises, and the convenience and well being of other tenants.

When a court is called upon to interpret a statute, its duty is to give the words used by the Legislature their plain and ordinary meaning unless the Legislature has supplied definitions of those terms, or a different meaning is required due to the context of their use, other statutes or technical nature of the terms. See G.L.c. 4, §6, third; Commonwealth v. Zone Book, Inc., 372 Mass. 366, 369 (1977).

B. Plain meaning rule.

The third-party plaintiffs maintain that the phase “should indemnity . . .” as it appears in paragraph 2 of G.L.c. 122A, §22 has a plain and straightforward meaning that landlords are to be held harmless for any damage suffered by a tenant or anyone else based on an injury involving a cable TV system. For several reasons, this interpretation is not sound. The plain meaning rule does not mean that the words of a statute should be read in isolation from the rest of the statute, or that one section of a statutory scheme should be read apart from the entirety of the scheme. See Polaroid Corp. v. Comm’r of Revenue, 393 Mass. 490, 497 (1984).

The meaning of the word “damage” as used in G.L.c. 166A, §22, paragraph two, is illuminated by looking at the context of that word as used in other provisions of the General Laws. Throughout the General Laws, the word “damage” in the singular is used when the provision refers to the actual injuries to property or people, while the word “damages” in the plural refers to the money to be paid by a party as compensation for the injuiy to the property or person for which that party is liable.2 One example, G.L.c. 106, §2A-504 (Liquidation of Damages) illustrates the point. The first paragraph of the section begins with a provision that states in part that “Damages payable by either party for default, or any other act or omission, including indemnity for . . . loss or damage to lessor’s residual [59]*59interest may be liquidated in the lease agreement. . Mass.Gen.Laws c. 106 §2A-504 (emphasis added). “Where words are used in one part of a statute in a definite sense, they should be given the same meaning in another part of the statute.” Beeler v. Downey, 387 Mass. 609, 617 (1982). The same is true when words in certain statutes have been given a definite sense and are used in other statutes.

Additionally, if the legislature truly intended to indemnify landlords for any damages arising from the mere fact of having cable installed at their premises, section twenty-two would likely have been modeled after section five of the same chapter, which establishes the licensing conditions imposed on CATV operators. Section five states in relevant part:

[Each licensee] shall indemnify and hold the city or town harmless at all times during the term of the license from any and all claims for injury and damage to persons or property, both real and personal, caused by the installation, operation, or maintenance of any structure, equipment, wire or cable authorized to be installed pursuant to the license.

Here, there is no doubt that the Legislature intended the CATV operators to indemnify the cities and towns in which their operations existed. Therefore, if the Legislature had intended that an operator of CATV system facilities to indemnify landlords in the way the Nguyens claim, the Legislature would have stated just that.

Furthermore, the adjective “such” in section twenly-two modifies the word “actions” in the clause at issue in the present case. The actions being referred to are the verbs “... qffix[ing], or caus[ing] to be affixed CATV system facilities to the dwelling of a tenant...” (Emphasis added.) The plain language rule, therefore, demands that the damage that a landlord is to be indemnified for is the damage that arises from the action of the installation, not for damage that may occur from the future results of CATV system facilities being present on the premises.

(Paragraph 7.) An owner whose property is injuriously affected, by occupation of the ground or air or otherwise by such construction of CATY system facilities may recover damages therefor from the operator pursuant to chapter seventy-nine . . .

The above paragraph is not a provision to allow the landlord to recover damages when another is injured by cable installation.

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Bluebook (online)
23 Mass. L. Rptr. 57, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ligouri-v-nguyen-masssuperct-2007.