Landlord’s Liability For Actions Of Tenant

Ribee v Norrie (TLR 22 November CA)

The judge had been wrong to dismiss the claimant’s claim for personal injuries following the outbreak of a fire at a neighbouring property owned by the defendant. The neighbouring property was operated as a hostel providing bedsit accommodation and the fire had been started by one of the tenants discarding a cigarette. The discarding of the cigarette was not so alien to the behaviour that might have been anticipated from a tenant so as to exculpate the landlord. On the contrary, it could have been reasonably anticipated that tenants would smoke and possibly discard their cigarettes without ensuring that they were properly extinguished. The judge had been in error in holding that the landlord was not responsible for his tenant’s actions on the grounds that the tenant was a ‘stranger’. A stranger is an individual over whom the occupier had no control but on the facts of the instant case the landlord could have prohibited or otherwise regulated smoking within the premises. Whether he had actually chosen to exercise such control was irrelevant. Accordingly the tenant in question could not be regarded as a stranger to the landlord.