Litigation

Oregon Court of Appeals finds landlord not liable for assault by tenant

By Matt Hedberg

Last week in Miller v. Tabor West Investment Co., LLC et al., the Oregon Court of Appeals held that a landlord is not liable under a theory of negligence for an off-premises assault committed by one tenant upon another tenant because the assault was not reasonably foreseeable.

The case involved an assault committed by a tenant who the defendant apartment complex owners and property managers knew had past history of violence.  The Court of Appeals analyzed the standards for a negligence claim within the context of a landlord-tenant relationship.  Although noting that a landlord can owe a special duty of care to a tenant, the Court of Appeals stated that "the scope of that particular duty in that particular relationship turns out to be limited to harms to plaintiff that were reasonably foreseeable."  Because the landlord did not know of a risk of the particular type of harm that befell plaintiff, the landlord was not liable.

Full post as published by Northwest Business Litigation Blog on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).