WPI 130.05 Duty of Landlord to Persons on Premises With Permission of Tenant

This instruction is for residential and nonresidential tenancies. Use this instruction when the person injured is on the premises with the permission of the tenant. This instruction should be used with those instructions that apply to the tenant. Use bracketed language as appropriate.

If the only basis for the landlord's liability is breach of the warranty of habitability, this instruction may not be applicable. See discussion in the Comment.

If the premises are leased for public use and the injured party is a member of the public, use WPI 120.07 (Liability to Business or Public Invitee—Condition of Premises—Condition Not Caused by the Owner or Occupier) instead of this instruction.

“The tenant's guest, like his servant, is usually held to be so identified with the tenant that his right of recovery for injury as against the landlord is the same as that of the tenant would be had he suffered the injury.” Mesher v. Osborne, 75 Wash. 439, 134 P. 1092 (1913). The category includes: a tenant's social guests, Mesher v. Osborne, 75 Wash. 439; Charlton v. Day Island Marina, Inc., 46 Wn.App. 784, 732 P.2d 1008 (1987); business customers, Hogan v. Metro. Bldg. Co., 120 Wash. 82, 206 P. 959 (1922); subtenants, Larson v. Eldridge, 153 Wash. 23, 279 P. 120 (1929); and employees, Baker v. Moeller, 52 Wash. 605, 101 P. 231 (1909). As the court stated in Brunton v. Ellensburg Elks, 73 Wn.App. 891, 894, 872 P.2d 47, 48 (1994), “… landlords are liable to guests of their tenants only for failure to disclose hidden defects known, or which should have been known to them at the inception of the lease.”

As discussed further in the Comment to WPI 130.06 (Duty of Landlord to Tenant—Residential Tenancies), there is some dispute as to whether a cause of action based on a breach of the warranty of habitability can be asserted by a non-tenant. See Sjogren v. Properties of Pac. N.W., L.L.C., 118 Wn.App.144, 75 P.3d 592 (2003).