Section 1942

Citation: Section 1942
Parent Document: Knight v. Hallsthammar, 623 P.2d 268 (1981)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 1981-02-13
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1241155/knight-v-hallsthammar/ ↗

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Next, this court must decide whether the trial court erred when it instructed the jury that a breach of the implied warranty of habitability would be a defense to the unlawful detainer action only if plaintiff landlords had been allowed “a reasonable time to correct the defect while the tenant remained in possession.” As pointed out by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, “[t]he landlord’s lack of fault and reasonable efforts to repair do not prolong the duty to pay full rent.” (Berman & Sons, Inc. v. Jefferson (1979) — Mass. — [396 *55N.E.2d 981, 983]; see also Jarrell v. Hartman (1977) 48 Ill.App.3d 985 [363 N.E.2d 626, 628, 6 Ill.Dec. 812].) Also, it is significant that section 1941 of the California Civil Code speaks of a lessor’s duty to put a building into a condition fit for occupation and to repair all later defects which make the premises uninhabitable. At least in a situation where, as here, a landlord has notice of alleged uninhabitable conditions not caused by the tenants themselves,6 a landlord’s breach of the implied warranty of habitability exists whether or not he has had a “reasonable” time to repair. Otherwise, the mutual dependence of a landlord’s obligation to maintain habitable premises, and of a tenant’s duty to pay rent, would make no sense. (See Green v. Superior Court, supra, at pp. 634, 635.) Accordingly, the trial court erred in instructing that the tenants could not succeed in their defense unless the landlords had been allowed a “reasonable” time to repair.7

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