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Willard v. Parsons Hill Partnership8/5/2005
ledge. For example, it prevents tenants from using a subsequently occurring habitability defect as an excuse for nonpayment of rent that is wholly unrelated to the defect and that began before the defect arose. See id. § 4458(a)(1) (allowing for withholding of rent by tenant during period of landlord's noncompliance).
20. By contrast, the provision requiring notice from the tenant serves no similarly important or logical purpose in cases involving latent defects of which the landlord had written notice from someone other than the tenant. In such cases, the statute's notice of noncompliance provision is nothing more than a notice-of-suit requirement. The trial court's attempt to apply the notice provision to this case illustrates the point. The trial court ruled that the Willards' pre-suit notice satisfied the statute, and their claim was not, therefore, barred on notice grounds like the Poulins' claim. The notice, sent by the Willards' attorney to the partnership's attorney, indicated that it was directed to the partnership and general partner Yvonne Rooney, stated that it was sent on behalf of eight tenant families at Parsons Hill, and requested the recipient to "accept this notice under 9 V.S.A. Section 4458 that the Parsons Hill Partnership and Yvonne Rooney are in breach of their obligations for habitability with regard to the water at the Parsons Hill apartments." The letter makes no attempt to explain the exact nature of the water problem.
21. No explanation was needed because the partnership and its general partner had known since 1983 that PCE contamination was the problem, even if the origin of the PCE was still unknown. The record here contains numerous examples of written notice of the water problem sent by the State to general partner Yvonne Rooney. Applying the notice provision, as the trial court did, in this ritualistic manner does nothing to further the statute's purpose-protecting law-abiding landlords. Similarly, imposing a notice requirement in a latent defect case where the landlord already knows what the problem is serves no purpose. Therefore, it is apparent that the law was directed only at patent defects. To construe the statute otherwise would lead to a patently absurd result.
22. The legislative debate on the habitability sections in the RRAA supports our assessment that the Legislature's focus was on patent habitability defects. After its introduction in the Vermont House of Representatives, the RRAA bill, H.339, was ultimately referred to the House Judiciary Committee. H. Jour. 208, 1985-1986 Gen. Assem., Adj. Sess. (Vt. Feb. 26, 1986). The Judiciary Committee struck all the original provisions of the bill, except for the enacting clause, and substituted its own amended version of the bill. Id. The section of the committee's amended bill dealing with tenant remedies in the event of habitability breaches is identical to the final version of the RRAA. Compare id. at 210 with 9 V.S.A. § 4458. The following exchange is a representative sample of the committee's discussion:
REP. BATTEN: t would seem that after Hilder v. St. Peter, many tenants are using that decision to just move in and not pay rent and claim it is because the premises are defective and the owner won't do anything about it. I wonder if there should be some burden placed on the tenant that there be some notification of the deficiency - say the heat has gone off, that that tenant should have the burden of notify the landlord prior to nonpayment of rent.
MS. ANCEL: That is required in the [Hilder] case. And, it's also required in the bill.
REP. BATTEN: . . . And, I think people - they haven't paid rent and the landlord starts eviction proceeding an
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