18 Ga. App. 250 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1916
Isaiah LeGree, as next friend for Abbie LeGree, brought suit against Richard Roach, claiming damages for various personal injuries. Her petition shows, that on July 18, 1913, she resided with her parents, in a certain house of the defendant, which he rented to her parents; that she was at that time only three years of age; thát on the night of that day, when placed in bed by her parents, the foot of the bed fell through a-rotten plank, thereby causing her to be thrown out of the bed; that she landed on the floor on her side, and by reason of the fall her hip was wrenched and knocked out of place, so that her left leg is an inch shorter than her right leg; that her injuries are permanent, since one of her legs will always be shorter than the other; that she exercised ordinary care and diligence to avoid the injury, and that the defective condition of that portion of the floor which gave away and caused the bed to fall was unknown to her. It is alleged that some time before she sustained these injuries, her parents notified the defendant that the house was in a defective condition and requested him to inspect and repair it, but that he neglected to do so; and that her injuries were due to his negligence in failing to repair the house after he knew of its defective condition, and in allowing it to become defective and rotten, and to be in an unsafe condition.
The defendant demurred- to the petition; the court sustained some of the grounds of demurrer and overruled others, and gave the plaintiff time to amend. Within the time allowed, the plaintiff amended by alleging that on or about May 10, 1913, her mother notified a named agent of the defendant of the defective condition of the house; that she notified him “that the back steps were out of order, and that the floor in the bedroom, in which the
The petition, as finally amended, was legally sufficient to withstand the several grounds of the special demurrer, and the trial court properly overruled them. As against a general demurrer, the amended petition set forth a cause of action. The suit was based on sections 3694 and 3699 of the Civil Code. Section 3694 declares that the landlord “is responsible to others for damages arising from defective construction, or for damages from failing to keep the premises in repair.” Section 3699 is as follows: “The landlord must keep the premises in repair, and is liable for all substantial improvements placed upon them by his consent.” At common law the tenant, and not the landlord, was bound to make all necessary repairs, unless there was an express stipulation to the contrary in the rental contract. Nor was 'there any implied warranty on the part of the landlord that the premises were suitable for the purpose for which they were rented, or that they were in a condition to be occupied. See 1 Taylor’s Land. & Ten. (8th ed.) §§ 175 (a), 327, 328; Gear, Land. & Ten., § 104. However, the common-law rule is no longer of force in Georgia, since our code distinctly provides that the landlord is bound to keep the premises in repair. But, in order to sustain a cause of action against a landlord for failure to keep the premises in repair, the tenant must allege and prove that he has given the landlord notice of the defective condition of the premises. Not only is the landlord entitled to notice from the tenant that the premises are out of repair before the landlord will be held liable, but it is also incumbent upon the tenant to show that his own conduct was not such as to preclude him from recovering. Guthman v. Castleberry, 48 Ga. 175; Stack v. Harris, 111 Ga. 149, 150 (36 S. E. 615).
The petition in this case discloses that the tenant gave the landlord the required notice of the defective condition of the premises. However, it was contended that the notice was not specific enough, since the only notice alleged was “that the floor in the bedroom, . . near the door, was rotten and giving way,”