Landlord Liability for Conduct of a Tenant

July 15, 2008 | Roger McEowen

Under the general rule, a landlord is not liable for the acts of a tenant that cause harm to another person or their property. The reason is that the tenant has the possession over the leasehold premises during the tenancy and has control over what occurs on the leased property. But, what if the tenant does something that harms another person (such as an adjacent owner) and the landlord knows about the tenant’s actions and renews the lease without requiring a change in the tenant’s conduct? Is the landlord liable in that situation? That was the issue in a recent Iowa case involving a tenant’s manure spreading activities. 

The parties were all rural neighbors. The defendant operated a hog operation across the road from the plaintiffs and entered into an oral lease with the plaintiffs’ neighbor who owned land south of the plaintiffs. The tenant surface-applied hog manure to the south field, and the plaintiffs complained to the landlord about the resulting odors.  The landlord, however, proceeded to buy the tract directly to the north of the plaintiffs and allowed the tenant to spread hog manure on that field, coming as close as 90 feet from the plaintiffs’ home. The plaintiffs’ numerous complaints about the odor were ignored for the next four years, so they eventually sued both the tenant and the landlord on a nuisance theory. The trial court dismissed the landlord from the lawsuit because the landlord did not “substantially control or participate” in the nuisance activity.

On review, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed. The Court ruled that the landlord’s liability did not hinge on whether the landlord substantially controlled or participated in the nuisance activity, but whether the landlord (1) could be held liable for nuisance if the landlord had conducted the complained-of activity personally; (2) at the time of the lease consented to the tenant’s activity or had reason to know that it would occur, and; (3) knew or should have known that the tenant’s activity either involved a nuisance or was already causing a nuisance. Iowa law has long held that a nuisance can result from manure spreading activities near a residence, and the facts revealed that the landlord knew that the odors were very offensive to the plaintiff and were impacting the plaintiffs’ property rights. The landlord knew about this before renewing the lease several times with the tenant. Thus, it was improper for the trial court to have dismissed the landlord from the case. 

So, while the general rule of landlord non-liability for a tenant’s acts still holds, if the landlord knows that the tenant is harming the property rights of adjacent landowners and does nothing to modify the tenant’s conduct or terminate the lease, the landlord can be held liable along with the tenant. The court’s opinion is a victory for the protection of private property rights, and will help reduce land-use conflicts in rural Iowa. Tetzlaff v. Camp, et al., 715 N.W.2d 256 (Iowa Sup. Ct. 2006).

Update: In early 2008, upon removal, the trial court jury determined that a nuisance did not exist.