North Carolina court rules landlord had no repair duty before explosion

A tenant severely burned by a natural gas explosion inside his North Carolina rental home can't successfully sue the landlord for negligence or other claims because there is no evidence the owner was made aware of needed house repairs and a possible gas leak inside, the state Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

By a 5-2 decision, the justices reversed a split 2022 Court of Appeals panel that had declared civil claims filed by Anthony Terry could be tried before a jury alleging in part that William V. Lucas failed in his duty to make home repairs and use reasonable care to inspect and maintain the property.

An explosion occurred in April 2017 when Terry turned on the light in the bathroom of his three-bedroom Durham home, setting him on fire. He was in a coma for four months and wasn't released from medical care until the end of 2018, and years later still suffered constant pain and was bedbound most of the time, the prevailing Court of Appeals opinion said.

There was a water leak in the bathroom that an expert said had caused a hole in the floor and for about seven years had corroded and rusted pipe in the crawlspace that supplied natural gas to the furnace. In the months before the explosion, the natural gas company and fire department came to the home twice to respond to reports of the smell of gas, Friday's ruling said.

In the majority opinion that sided with then-Durham County Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson’s ruling to dismiss Terry’s lawsuit, Associate Justice Tamara Barringer said that the common law created no duty for a landlord to inspect a leased property. Lucas hadn't inspected the furnace or and other portion of the property since Terry and his family occupied it, she wrote. Terry's wife signed a lease for the home in the mid-2000s.

However, the state’s Residential Rental Agreements Act, enacted in 1977, creates a landlord's duty to make repairs, but only after receiving notice of the problem or acquiring actual knowledge about the condition, Barringer wrote. Terry never provided notice to Lucas about the hole or the water leak or told Lucas about the times firefighters or the gas company had come to investigate gas leak reports, she added.

Terry's attorneys also argued that Lucas had a duty to comply with local housing codes, but the lack of notice about issues afforded "him no opportunity to take reasonable steps to remedy a violation,” Barringer wrote.

Associate Justice Allison Riggs, who wrote a dissenting opinion, said she would have allowed the case to go before a jury, saying the 1977 law does create a duty for a landlord in part to maintain a property's facilities and appliances "in good and safe working order.”

The case record “demonstrates genuine issues about whether this landlord was negligent in the duty to maintain in ‘good and safe’ working order the gas-fired furnace and associated gas piping,” Riggs wrote. Associate Justice Anita Earls joined in Riggs' opinion.

Natural gas provider Public Service Co. of North Carolina was a lawsuit defendant but claims against it were dismissed. The case attracted legal briefs from lawyers for several advocacy groups for the poor and for the North Carolina Association of Defense Attorneys.