Courtroom Success 2015-37: Springfield Partner Jack Burke & Associate Tom Bacon

Associate Tom Bacon and Partner Jack Burke of our Springfield office recently had summary judgment allowed in favor of our client—the landlord in a tenant injury matter in the Palmer District Court. The plaintiff claimed injuries in a fall down a flight of stairs from her second floor apartment in a two-family house after, she alleged, her foot caught on an upturned corner of a carpet remnant affixed to an upper stair tread. She claimed negligence, breach of warranty of habitability, breach of covenant of quiet enjoyment, and various building and sanitary code violations. The judge based the decision on the traditional tort requirements that the defect has to have been caused by the defendants, actually known to the defendants, or was reasonably discoverable and repairable by the defendants, as to all of which the evidence was insufficient under any of her theories.