Malvern, AR — A storm blew through Malvern, Arkansas, on Friday, October 3, 2014, and blew over a tree in Johnathan Cooper’s front yard. The tree fell on Cooper’s home and crashed through the roof, killing him as he protected his infant daughter.
Duanna Davis, Cooper’s fiance, says that the tree which was knocked over in the storm was a hazard, and hand been for a long time. She maintains that the owner of the house had been told several times that the tree needed to come down, but that nothing had been done.
A local tree trimming service interviewed by local news on the story said that they had once given a quote on that same tree, and said that it’s needed to come down for years. The accident is still being looked into.
Approximate Scene of the Accident
Commentary
I think most people would be really surprised to learn how the law applies in a situation like this. Most people probably assume that this is a simple landlord/tenant issue, and that the landlord is ultimately responsible for the victim’s death. That’s not how it always works, and may not be how it works in this case. This accident falls into the realm of premises liability law, which is the body of law devoted to resolving disputes between property owners and people injured because of defects of the property. When a tenant leases a property, they “take possession” of it. Technically speaking, the possessor is treated as if they’re the property owner in matters regarding who’s responsible for people injured while on the property, or through defects of the property.
That means that if you rent a house and someone comes over and is hurt through some defect in the house, since you as the renter are the legal possessor of the home, you’re liable for that accident, not the actual property owner. However, there’s a big exception to all of this. There are some parts of a property a tenant takes possession of, and others that remain in the possession of the landlord. For example, whenever you rent an apartment, you only take possession of your unit. You don’t take possession of the gym or the pool. In this situation, the liability of the actual property owner will come down to the lease agreement between the renters and the owner. If the agreement says that the renters are responsible for things like mowing the grass and landscaping, then they took possession of everything, and that would mean that, legally speaking, the victim was killed by a defect he had the legal obligation to remedy. However, if it was the landlord who retained possession of landscaping, then he would ultimately be responsible for the accident.
— Grossman Law Offices
