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SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN FAVOR OF LANDLORD REVERSED IN MARYLAND LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING CASE, BASED ON KNOWLEDGE ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE LANDLORD FROM THE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT COMPANY
The Maryland Court of Appeals has again reversed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment to a landlord in a lead paint poisoning test. In this case, the Court did so because the requisite knowledge on the part of the landlord could be imputed to the landlord from his agents, specifically, the property management company, when the evidence was viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. This is a further expression of the Court’s view that the effectiveness of the housing code in promoting health and safety would be severely undermined if landlords were permitted to use lack of knowledge that the flaking paint was lead-based paint as a defense against civil liability for injuries proximately caused by their failure to comply with the law. The Court applied the standard recently established concerning the granting of summary judgment in a lead-based paint poisoning case. See Brown v. Dermer, 357 Md. 344, 744 A.2d 47 (2000). In Brown v. Dermer, the Court stated that to survive summary judgment, a plaintiff alleging lead paint poisoning caused by a landlord’s negligence in failing to correct a defective condition in the leased dwelling must first meet the "reason to know" test. That is, that the landlord knew or had reason to know of a condition on the premises posing an unreasonable risk of physical harm to persons in the premises. The Court held that all that a plaintiff must show in order to satisfy the reason to know element is that there was flaking, loose or peeling paint and that the defendant had notice of that condition. It need not be shown that the flaking, loose or peeling paint was known to be lead-based. Second, Brown v. Dermer held that once the reason to know test is satisfied, a plaintiff must present facts that establish that he or she or a landlord of ordinary intelligence with the same knowledge, should realize the risk of lead poisoning. The only question for the court to decide at the summary judgment stage is whether the lead-based paint injury is without, or within, the range of reasonable anticipation and probability. In Jones, the Court of Appeals found that the "reason to know" test was satisfied, for purposes of opposing summary judgment, because a principal of the property management company had become aware of the hazards of lead-based paint around 1980, based on violation notices received from the Baltimore City Health Department for an unrelated property that the management company was handling. Further, there was testimony that a month before the time that the plaintiff’s children first tested positive for lead poisoning, the plaintiff had called the property management company to request repairs for peeling paint. A repairman in fact came to the row house around that time, saying he was "from maintenance" and was going to paint. He scraped a wall, then left and never came back. The Court held that the knowledge that could be inferred to the property management company "is attributable to the landlords, as [the property management company] was apparently authorized to act for the landlords when it came to making repairs." Likewise, it was also a reasonable inference that the property management company, once on notice of the existence of peeling paint in the premises, would have realized the risk of lead poisoning in the Plaintiff’s children. This is because of the property management company’s expertise and knowledge of the dangers of lead-based paint. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment, even though it was apparently undisputed that the property owner had never received the Health Department’s written notice of lead-based paint hazards in the premises, since the notice was sent to the wrong address. By David B. Stratton, Esq. [For more on lead poisoning, click here.] |
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