Owner Must Maintain Lighting Near Loading Dock

Facts: A discount store rented space at a strip mall. The lease provided that the center’s owner would maintain the lighting in the common areas, including the area of the center behind the stores, which was used as a loading dock for merchandise to be brought into the tenant’s store. The owner also agreed to indemnify the tenant for claims arising from an unsafe condition on the premises caused by the owner’s maintenance failure.

            While unloading a truck full of merchandise, the tenant’s employee noticed that the bulb in the lighting fixture on the loading dock had burned out. He continued to unload the truck, but due to the lack of lighting didn’t see a heavy box stacked above him, which subsequently fell on him, causing brain damage.

            The employee sued the tenant and the owner for negligence. The tenant asked the owner to indemnify it, but the owner refused. The tenant filed a cross-claim—that is,a claim by one defendant in a lawsuit against a co-defendant in the same lawsuit—against the owner, asking the court to order the owner to fulfill its duty under the lease to indemnify the tenant. The tenant asked the court for a judgment in its favor without a trial.

            The owner filed a cross-claim against the tenant, alleging that the tenant’s negligence in maintaining the area caused the injury, and that the tenant was required to defend and indemnify the owner for claims arising from an unsafe condition on the premises caused by the tenant’s maintenance failure. Meanwhile, the employee dropped his lawsuit against the owner.

Decision: A Missouri trial court ruled in favor of the tenant on its cross-claim against the owner.

Reasoning: The trial court determined that the owner had a duty under the lease to maintain the lighting in the area where the injury occurred. The tenant argued that the specific provisions that allotted responsibility for maintenance of the common areas to the owner were unambiguous. The tenant said the docking area clearly was part of the common area. The owner argued that: (1) the physical area where the injury took place was an “appurtenance” to the tenant’s space, rather than part of the common area defined by the lease; and (2) the lease was ambiguous.

            The trial court noted that the fixture without a working light bulb that caused the poor lighting was attached to the exterior of the building near the loading dock’s receiving door. The switch that controlled that light was inside the store. The owner had never maintained the lights inside the store.

            “A contract is ambiguous only if its terms are reasonably open to more than one meaning, or the meaning of the language used is uncertain,” the trial court stated. “The relevant terms of the lease agreement in this case are not ambiguous,” it said. The lease defines “Common Areas” as “all that portion of the tract of land not covered by buildings” and delegates the duty to maintain the common area to the owner—including keeping “such areas lighted during hours of darkness when the demised premises are open for business,” the court pointed out. The lease also divided the maintenance duty: The owner was responsible for the exterior, and the tenant for the interior of the premises. The agreement expressly states that maintenance of the common area included lighting.

            The light fixture was attached to the exterior of the building near the receiving door, adjacent to the common area. Because of the light fixture’s location, the duty to maintain the exterior of the building included the duty to maintain the light fixture, the trial court concluded. The owner had a duty to maintain the light fixture or otherwise provide for lighting the common area.

• Baird v. Dolgencorp, L.L.C., November 2012