Tenant is liable for damages caused by structural failure unless the landlord is guilty of misfeasance or bound by a contract to maintain the property.

JUDGMENT
1. The point arising in this case is a very narrow one but in my opinion extremely difficult, if not impossible, to decide upon any recognized principle. The material facts are that the plaintiff owns a godown in Ahmedabad Street, between which and Baroda Street, in which the godown belonging to defendant 1 and leased to defendant 2 stood, runs a narrow gully 3 feet wide. On the 19th February 1915, the southern wall of the godown in Baroda Street fell against the northern wall of the plaintiff's godown and with it fell a considerable number of bags of rice. The effect of the concussion was materially to damage the plaintiff's northern wall. In respect of that damage, not being clear which of the defendants is liable the plaintiff sues them both. I think one or the other must be liable; the difficulty is to determine which. As between defendants 1 and 2 the material facts are that the godown in Baroda Street was originally erected on land taken on lease from the Port Trust by the predecessor-in-title of defendant 1. The godown having been duly erected was leased in 1910 for a term of five years (the term to commence in 1911) to defendant 2. Thereafter the lease from the Port Trust was transferred in 1912 to the present defendant 1. At that time in accordance with the Port Trust Regulations the godown was inspected by the Port Trust Officials and certified to be in good order. So that it is certain that two years after the nominal, and one year after the real, leasing of the godown to defendant 2, it was still in the estimation of competent authorities thoroughly sound. Nevertheless, in 1915, in the fair weather and without any apparent cause the southern wall collapsed and the godown being full of rice bags, a great many of them fell with the wall against the plaintiff's wall doing the damage complained of.

2. The question, then, is whether the lessor or the lessee is liable to the plaintiff. The general rule laid down as deducible from the English case law is that the owner or the landlord can never be liable for injuries suffered through neglect to keep the demised property in order, except upon the grounds (1) of misfeasance and (2) of breach of contract; that is to say, that unless it can be shown that at the time of the original leasing, or, if the term is short, on the renewal of each of such terms, the building was let in a ruinous or unsafe condition, he can never be liable for the consequences of such condition unless he has undertaken by special contract to repair. If we accept the rule thus compendiously stated in Halsbury and often to be found almost in the same words in the judgments of the English Courts, then one thing at least would be certain, ajnd that is that defendant 1 is not liable; for the statement of the facts I have given shows that he could not be fixed with liability on the ground of misfesance at the time of letting, and the only contract made between himself and the tenant cast upon him no more than the duty of making minor repairs to windows, doors and interior fixings and the conclusion might be reached by a short cut by saying that one of the two, the landlord or the tenant, must be liable; and as on this principle of the Englis