Evans v. Thomason, 72 Cal. App. 3d 978, 140 Cal. Rptr. 525 (1977)

The Evans family rented an unfurnished one-bedroom apartment in Healdsburg on a month-to-month basis. They plugged their refrigerator and their freezer into a double electrical outlet in the kitchen. In December, the lower outlet stopped working. There wasnt another outlet nearby, so the tenants bought a extension cord, plugged it in to the top outlet, and plugged both the refrigerator and freezer into that.

The landlords were renovating the apartment next door at that time. One of the Evanses went over and told the landlords about the problem with the electrical outlet. The landlords said theyd fix it, but they never did. Two of them were experienced electricians, and it would have taken them less than ten minutes to do the repairs. On at least two occasions, one of the landlords was in the Evanss kitchen and saw their extension cord arrangement.

In May, the overloaded extension cord started a fire. Mr. and Mrs. Evans and their children were severely injured and lost most of their possessions. They sued the landlords for damages.

Could the landlords be held liable when it was the tenants themselves who had created the dangerous extension cord arrangement? Did the landlords have a duty to repair the electrical outlet? If so, was it based on their agreement with the tenants, or imposed by law?

What if the lease had stated that the landlords had no duty to repair any problems that arose after the lease began? What if the lease had provided that the landlords could not be held liable for injuries occurring on the property during the tenancy? Would the answers to these questions be different if this had been a commercial lease?

If this had been a one-year lease instead of a month-to-month lease, would the tenants have had a right to move out and stop paying rent because of the landlords failure to make the repairs? What could the tenants have done aside from moving out?