Landlord's contractors let my dog out

[mike77]

My dog was at my girlfriend's house for one night. The next day she called me saying that the landlord's contractors were doing work at the house and left her door open, which allowed my dog to get out and subsequently get hit by a car (he is okay). The landlord never gave 24 hour notice, claiming he thought one of my girlfriend's roomates gave him permission to enter at any time (totally not true). My girlfriend's lease says that "no animals are allowed on the premises", yet the landlord allowed them to have a cat (which also got out but came back). When I talked to him, he hid behind that clause, saying that the dog should not have been there and sorry about the lack of notice and he is not going to pay.

My dog had over $1000 in bills. I want to take the landlord to small claims court to recover the costs.

Do I have a case? (The case would be filed in San Francisco)

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I believe that you do have a case and I'll tell you why. If your landlord had, with the landlord's knowledge, allowed your girlfriend and/or roomates to have a cat on the premises, that could be considered a "waiver" of the "no animals" clause. The law is constructed so that people should be able to act reasonably. In this instance the landlord by prior conduct, gave you every reason to believe that the written clause in the lease was not to be enforced and gave you consent to have animals on the premises. The proper way to state this in legalese is that the landlord "waived" the no animals clause.