Raczkowski v. McFarlane

Citations

• 195 Conn. App. 402

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendants, G and M, for negligence in connection with personal injuries she allegedly sustained when she was bitten by a dog owned by M on property that M leased from G pursuant to a written lease agreement. The lease permitted the tenant to keep a pet on the property in exchange for increased rent but required that the pet pose no threat to anyone entering the property and provided that that was to be determined by the landlord. The plaintiff alleged, inter alia, that G was negligent because she knew or should have known the vicious propensities of M's dog and by allowing the dog to stay on the property, G failed to use reasonable care to keep the property in a reasonably safe condition. In addition, the plaintiff alleged that the lease imposed on G a duty of care that extended to third persons who were not parties to the lease. Following a hearing, the trial court granted G's motion for summary judgment and rendered judgment thereon, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. She claimed that the trial court improperly rendered summary judgment in favor of G because it erroneously concluded that G did not owe her a duty of care on the basis of the lease between G and M. Held: 1. The trial court properly rendered summary judgment in G's favor, there having been no genuine issue of material fact that the plain language of the lease did not require G to investigate the behavioral propensities of M's dog and that the lease did not create a duty on the part of G to third persons who might encounter the dog on the property; the relevant language of the lease clearly did not impose a duty on G to perform an extraneous investigation of the dog's behavioral propensities but, rather, simply provided G with discretion to approve or deny the ability of the tenant to own or keep pets on the property and was included for the exclusive benefit of G in her capacity as the landlord, and the obligations under the lease were li