REAL ESTATE AND THE LAW : Should Tenants Be Told Neighbor Is Molester?

Everett was convicted of criminal sexual conduct against a young female child. He was released on probation and rented a vacant trailer on the farm owned by Buford and Debra. They knew Everett had been convicted by reading about the incident in the local newspaper. But when Buford and Debra spoke with Everett’s probation officer, they were assured he was trustworthy.

Over a year later, Buford and Debra rented a house on the farm to a family with a 7-year-old boy, D. W., and a 5-year-old girl, N. W. Everett raised rabbits at his trailer, which attracted the children, who played there every day. About six months later, Everett sexually assaulted N. W. at the trailer. Everett later pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct.

Buford and Debra were sued for negligently failing to warn their tenants about Everett’s child molester conviction. But the landlords replied the harm was not foreseeable and they had no duty to warn of Everett’s dangerous propensities.

If you were the judge, would you rule landlords Buford and Debra had a duty to warn their tenants about Everett’s criminal conviction? The judge said no.

“At common law a person owed no duty to warn those endangered by the conduct of another,” he began. “Case law, however, has carved out an exception to this rule where a defendant stands in some special relationship to either the person whose conduct needs to be controlled or to the foreseeable victim of that conduct,” he explained.

The issue in this case, he continued, is whether Everett’s criminal sexual act was sufficiently foreseeable to impose a duty on landlords Buford and Debra to warn their other tenants. The landlords knew their tenant had been convicted, he was on probation and his rabbits attracted the young children, the judge noted. “But a duty to warn against the sociopathic and unpredictable conduct of a criminal does not lend itself easily to an ascertainable standard of foreseeability uncorrupted by hindsight nor to a determination of causation that avoids speculation,” he emphasized.

Since there is no evidence Everett ever made a specific threat to N. W., as a matter of law Buford and Debra had no duty to warn of Everett’s previous sexual misconduct against children, the judge wrote. Therefore, landlords Buford and Debra were not obligated to warn their other tenants about Everett’s conviction or dangerous propensities, the judge ruled.

Based on the 1992 Minnesota Court of Appeals decision in N. W. vs. Anderson, 478 N.W.2d 542.