Despite the clarity with which the foregoing propositions have been crafted, the Supreme Judicial Court has yet to settle the narrower issue of whether a landlord may be held liable to a nontenant for either economic loss or personal injury as a result of a breach of the warranty of habitability. Nevertheless, such an extension of liability is clearly foreshadowed by analogous decisions of the Court. For example, in Young v. Garwacki, 380 Mass. 162 (1980), the Supreme Judicial Court did away with the common law rule “bar[ring] a tenant’s guest from recovering compensation from a landlord for injuries caused by negligent maintenance of areas rented to the tenant.” Id. at 168. In reaching that conclusion, the Court looked to “[r]ecent decisions of this court [which] clearly reflect ... a shift in philosophy with regard to status distinctions in tort standards of care . . .” Id. at 167, quoting Poirier v. Plymouth, 374 Mass. 206, 221 (1978). Referring to decisions such as Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693 (1973) (eliminating the legal significance, in tort, of the distinctions between a licensee and invitee in connection with a landowner’s duty of care), the Young court reasoned that the rule barring recovery by a nontenant for personal injuries caused by a landlord’s negligent maintenance of areas rented to the tenant ”[l]ike the other rules based on status . . . has prevented a whole class of people from raising the controlling issue: whether the landlord acted reasonably under the circumstances. ” Young, supra at 168. Young also recognized that the line of cases creating and applying the implied warranty of habitability was responsible for eroding the theory on which a tenant’s status classification depends.6 Id., citing Berman & Sons v. Jefferson, 379 Mass. 196 (1979); Crowell v. McCaffrey, supra, and Boston Housing Authority v. Hemingway, supra.