Burst Pipes

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orangenerd

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State: Wisconsin

The situation is as follows. I purchased a new home while renting in December. I moved out of the rented unit (2nd floor of old downtown building) in December but let the landlord know of my intentions beforehand, (that i was looking to have someone take over my lease, but would continue to pay until i found someone). The thermostat had a "cool" "off" and "heat" setting. We had not had to turn on the heat yet (chilly high 50's to 60's but livable, so what we're penny pinchers) so we left it in the "off" position. We still had cleaning supplies there, and went back once or twice. Two weeks later, the pipes froze, burst and the downstairs is damaged (garage). The land lord says I am liable.

First off, I KNOW that my leaving the heat off was proabably a major factor in the pipes freezing, and will probably foot the bill. I am not asking about whose fault it is morally or ethically (everyone preaches, but no one acts). I am wondering strictly about my "LEGAL" responsibility in this matter.

Facts:
My lease has NO stipulation on minimum heat requirements, nor does it warn me of the possibility of frozen pipes (never owned a home, honestly didn;t know).

Landlord NEVER advised me verbally or through writing regarding keeping the temperature up to avoid this situation.

I kept the heat in the "off" position on the programmable thermostat.

The water pipes below my unit froze and burst causing water damage to the first floor(im on the second floor).

Assumptions:
I have nothing "LEGALLY" which tells me I must keep the heat on (as far as I know, the only Wisconsin statutes are that the landlord MUST disclose if the unit CANNOT reach 67 degrees, nothing about the tenant being required to keep it at that temperature). Therefore, if something happens as a result of my heat not being on, it is the fault of the landlord for not keeping the pipe from freezing (for all the "how would they keep it from freezing if you turned the heat off questions, there devices which force the furnace to kick in at certain temps regardless of thermostat settings). Since they KNEW of the possibility of a pipe freezing without heat to the apt, and I DID NOT, THEY were negligent in not informing me of said possibility.

Therefore, according to my above argument, I was not negligent in my keeping the heat off to save on heating costs. I am not "Legally" liable for ANY damage even though I did not have the heat on since it was not in my lease that I HAD to have the heat on. If anyone is liable it would be the landlord for 1) Failure to keep the pipes from freezing independant of what I set my thermostat to and 2) failure in "LEGALLY" transfering the responsibility of keeping the pipes from freezing to me by informing me of the problem, (Could have included a clause about minimum temp setting, keeping unit warm enough to keep pipes from freezing, etc )

Questions:

How sound is my argument? Is there something wrong with my logic? Any information regarding Specific WI laws regarding this or caselaws are appreciated. Again, I am not seeking moral or ethical lectures, nor am i looking for a "this is what you should have done" post, but am questioning the legality of my argument. Thank you
 
I didn't read your whole post...

From what I gather though, the landlord's insurance should pick up the bill on this. You shouldn't pay a penny.
 
I disagree, as I disagreed with your same posting on forum free advice.

You had possession of the property; the pipes burst due to your negligence (and frugality). There is no "magic" device that suddenly turns on a furnace that has been shut off.

Do you have documentation that you notified your landlord that when you left you turned the heat completely off?

Gail
 
How sound is my argument? Is there something wrong with my logic? Any information regarding Specific WI laws regarding this or caselaws are appreciated. Again, I am not seeking moral or ethical lectures, nor am i looking for a "this is what you should have done" post, but am questioning the legality of my argument. Thank you

My guess is that this is your "penny pinching" way of trying to rationalize how you shouldn't have to pay the damages you know you should pay.

Well, just to set your heart to rest, there is a legal theory under which you are LIABLE for the damage. That legal theory is called "due care." When you are in possession of someone else's property you are required to take "due care" of that property or you are liable for the damages.

Now I live here in Georgia and we rarely even think about pipes freezing and bursting but in Wisconsin you know darn well that is an issue. Since you "know or should have known" (another legal concept) that unheated pipes freeze in the winter where you live, you acted with "reckless abandon" instead of "due care" with your landlord's property.

Let's put it another way. If you had a roaring fire in your fireplace and decided to go to church. The fire is well within your rights as an tenant of the property. The fire is in the fireplace where it is suppose to be. But while you are gone an ember pops and send pieces onto the carpet which smolder and eventually catch flame and burn down the house. Are you liable? Of course you are.

There is a known danger in having a fire (or having no heat in the house). You knew or should have known the danger. You took the action that resulted in the damage: lit the fire (turned off the heat). You acted with reckless abandon by leaving a fire going unattended (or leaving a house with no heat unattended). A "foreseeable harm" came to the property that was under your care and control i.e. the house burned down (the pipes burst). The damage was the direct cause of the fire (or flood). ERGO you are responsible.

There are law students everywhere thankful for your question. I wouldn't go through that explanation if it wasn't a real case. Pay up my friend. You always knew it was the moral thing to do, now you know it is the legal thing to do also.
 
I disagree, as I disagreed with your same posting on forum free advice.

You had possession of the property; the pipes burst due to your negligence (and frugality). There is no "magic" device that suddenly turns on a furnace that has been shut off.

Do you have documentation that you notified your landlord that when you left you turned the heat completely off?

Gail

Gail, you keep saying my negligence, but WHAT negligence? Again my reasoning, lease does not say I have to heat house, I did not turn on heat in the first place, pipes freeze which is a maintenance issue.

"In order to establish negligence as a Cause of Action under the law of torts, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant had a duty to the plaintiff, the defendant breached that duty by failing to conform to the required standard of conduct, the defendant's negligent conduct was the cause of the harm to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff was, in fact, harmed or damaged" - Taken from legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com

I had no duty to the LL to have the heat on, written or verbal, therefore am not negligent in not having the heat on. Please do not use words you do not understand.

You ask about documentation. Why would I have to document to them that i turned the thermostat to the off position, when there was no documentation (or verbal instructions for that matter) for me to have it on in the first place.
 
If the landlord knew the place was unoccupied, doesn't the landlord have some responsibility here? The heater was left off because it wasn't necessary at the time.

I don't agree with the OP's reasoning, but I don't see him being at fault either. Perhaps he is, but I wouldn't pay anything until a judge ordered me to. This is what insurance is for.
 
I had no duty to the LL to have the heat on, written or verbal, therefore am not negligent in not having the heat on. Please do not use words you do not understand.

Whoah, pilgrim... easy now...

As I see it... had you been occupying the residence, you absolutely would be responsible for reasons given above. The only difference I see is that you were not occupying the place and had not been there for some time before the pipes burst, and the landlord was aware of this.

Take it easy on the insults.... you are the one quoting the thefreedictionary.com. Gail most certainly has a better understanding of the terms than you do.
 
Thank you Jharris for the "Due care" argument. I am asking though if "Legally" age and experience would be taken into account. I think you give us wisconsin folks too much credit in that we all know that pipes in an unheated apartment will freeze. First off, I am a college student who has never owned (prior to the event) a home.

Does the definition of "Due care" mean that I am to take "due care" of all I am knowledgable about and restrict it at that?

Let me put your Fire scenario another way. My house is very warm in the summer, So I have a window ac and turn it on while i go to church. The wall outlet is not built to handle the power and therefore blows, causing a fire and my house burns down. My actions of leaving the ac on (turning the heat off) caused the fire. But how was I to know the outlet wasn't built for it (pipes weren't insulated enough to prevent it from freezing, remember this is a shared floor meaning both the person below me AND my heat affect those pipes). How would the 'Due care" argument work here? I'm not saying it wouldn't, but am asking if it overrides this argument?
 
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Sorry, read my post on freeadvice.com to see why i'm not a fan of Gail. I was only posting the definition to reiterate that it should not be so quickly assume without explanation that I had been negligent, as Gail has done.
 
Due care means that you have, at the very least, very basic common sense when it comes to caring for property. Something that one would assume a college student (and now a new home owner) would possess. The required standard of conduct when one lives in a cold environment such as Wisconsin in the dead of winter is not to shut the heat totally off to save money without running the risk of freezing water pipes.

Your scenario of a wall outlet not built to handle the power would cause a breaker to shut off or a fuse to blow, stutting down the power to the unit. That is the purpose of breakers/fuses. They are a built in "safety" system for folks dumb enough to plug in devices that the wiring is unable to handle.

This is different than a lack of "due care" for the issue of pipes freezing in the winter due to your negligence. You are trying to use the excuse that because your landlord did not make you aware of ALL potential issues regarding due care, you are not responsible for the damage you caused. I am certain your lease also did not provide information that one should not clog toilets to overflowing with towels, leave stove burners on when one leaves the home or (as JHarris described) leave a fire going in the fireplace when on leaves but it's a given that as part of "due care" one does not do these things.

This really is what the judge would focus on should your landlord take you to court for failing to pay for the damages you caused.

Gail
 
You know, I missed the fact that you were in a building and not a house. The fact that the pipes are in a common area makes a great deal of difference. Being that you are not the only tenant and that the pipes are not accessible to you, there is a major difference in my analysis.

First, let me deal with your claim of ignorance. I don't mean to use the term with a negative connotation, you are simply pleading ignorance because you have never owned a property or been a tenant before. Unfortunately the law holds you responsible for what it calls "foreseeable" damage to property. Someone has to be liable! In your example, even though you have never been an electrician, the overloading of the socket and potential for burning the house down is obviously "foreseeable" to you or you wouldn't have been able to come up with it. If you lived up North for any amount of time I would find it hard to believe that you gave no thought to the possibility that the pipes would freeze. You learn that as a kid living with MOM.

HOWEVER!

Now let's introduce the concept of "causation" or "proximate cause." In order to be liable for damages you must be the "proximate cause" of that damage. Further there is a concept of "contributory negligence" and the legal theory of "sh*t happens." I can't remember the latin for that, something like crapo diem.

When you live in an apartment or condominium, you are responsible for the space inside your unit. From inside wall to inside wall so to speak. You are not the only one who affected the temperature of the pipes. You are not the only one who had access to the pipes (as you would be in a rental house). So, you are not the only one responsible for the pipes. Further, because they are outside of your domain of control, you are not really "responsible" for them at all. If you did something to them through your own negligence you would be liable, but your duty of "due care" is significantly less because you are not in possession and control of those pipes.

First, I'm not certain any longer that your actions actually "CAUSED" the freezing of the pipes. Your actions may have been a FACTOR in the freezing but not the "cause." You could be assessed with a portion of the liability if a Judge decided you were contributorialy negligent but I don't think that is the case. The pipes were in a space not under your control. The LL absolutely has a responsibility to "know" that his pipes could freeze and to take steps to prevent the pipes from freezing in the common areas. Furthermore, HEAT RISES, so the temperature of your apartment has far less to do with the pipes bursting than the apartment below yours. Ostensibly the apartment below did not turn off their heat, so the causation of the burst pipes is likely poor insulation of the walls and the pipes themselves or just OLD PIPES.

In this case, the responsibility for a common area falls squarely on the land lord and it is his problem not yours. You have no legal or moral responsibility for the pipes or the damage caused by the water.

PS: Gail has forgotten more about the concept of negligence than you know my friend. You owe her an apology for your smart mouth! :)

Good luck, I don't think you owe the land lord anything and if he sues you, he will likely lose. I'll send you a bill in the morning.
 
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How does not knowing all the inner workings of a house equal negligence? I am not an idiot who plugs the toilet, leaves the stove on, but I profess to "Honestly" not knowing (prior to this)that turning off the heat would freeze pipes, and to assume that "I should have known" is what I am questioning. Why would there be a need for plumbers and electricians or even apartment managers if we all should "just know by common sense" how everything around us works. It is easy to say, you live in a cold climate, you "should know that pipes freeze". But put yourselves in my shoes, faced with thousands of dollars in damages for a problem you didn't even know existed, what would you ask? Am i negligent in not knowing that the pipes would freeze if my heat was turned off, and my lack of knowledge prevented me from "due care" in keeping the pipes from freezing? Does the landlord only sit back and collect money and make me pay for things that break.

And Gail, I doubt you know know anything about the wiring of a house so don't be so quick to taunt.
 
Your first post states that you acknowledge that your leaving the heat off was probably a major factor in the pipes freezing...

Gail

P.S. I do the electrical work in the houses we own.
 
How does not knowing all the inner workings of a house equal negligence?

It's along the same lines as why you are still responsible for a speeding ticket when you honestly didn't know that you were speeding. Ignorance is never a good legal defense.
When water freezes it turns to ice.... and it also expands... common knowledge. It would be very reasonable to expect that you knew, OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, that pipes will burst if the water inside them freezes. It is a common occurrence.
Still- I say under these circumstances your landlord gets to deal with this through his insurance. Don't pay anything unless a judge orders you to.
 
When water freezes it turns to ice.... and it also expands... common knowledge. It would be very reasonable to expect that you knew, OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, that pipes will burst if the water inside them freezes. It is a common occurrence.
QUOTE]

I know water freezes at a certain temp, what i didn't know is that the insulation around the pipes or in the wall was not enough to keep the water in the pipes from reaching that temperature. The landlord does not want to go through their insurance...
 
As Moose says, what he wants isn't really the issue. That is what insurance is for. I would be happy to help you in the future. Just post to my wall.
 
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