6
their apartment. [Citations.] Ms. Hjelm testified that she and her husband had reported
the sewage issue to Prometheus, but neither she nor her husband provided a written
complaint. [Citation.] She further testified that Prometheus scheduled a time to fix the
sewer line and that its maintenance employees responded to her complaints, although
ineffectively in her opinion. [Citation [asserting that Prometheus’s maintenance
employees ‘would . . . use little tools, but not fix anything’].] The evidence further
showed that Prometheus was seeking a long-term solution for repairing the sewer line
[citation], but the issue was not resolved during the Hjelms’ tenancy. [Citation.]”
Then, in its argument asserting “there was no evidence that Prometheus breached
the standard of care applicable to property managers,” Prometheus fundamentally argues
that the Hjelms provided no expert witness, at least not one with the required
qualifications. As Prometheus sums up at one point, “[t]hus, while Dr. Kaae’s testimony
may have been relevant to the standard of care applicable to professionals in the pest
control industry, it was not relevant to the property management industry.” Prometheus
says the same thing about the sewer line, and then sums up by reference to its expert,
who, it claims, provided the “only competent expert testimony on the subject of property
management.”
Prometheus’s argument has several fundamental flaws.
To begin with, Prometheus may be content to call itself a property manager. The
fact is, it signed the lease.
Second, Prometheus cites nothing supporting the proposition that one needs expert
testimony to support a claim that bedbug infestation and/or raw sewage on the property
may violate the warranty of habitability or the covenant of quiet enjoyment. Put
otherwise, is that not something that might be within the knowledge of an average juror?
Third, and most fundamentally, Prometheus’s brief ignores all the evidence—and
much there was in the eight-day trial—about prior complaints about bedbugs and about
the lack of training Prometheus gave to its employees about how to address the issue. A
few illustrations should suffice.