is the landlord responsible for this?

[lildevil719]

Colorado Springs, Colorado

The bathroom in my apartment had a frame for a shower door around the tub. There was no shower door, just the frame, which was rusted out. My boyfriend(who lives with me, we're both on the lease) tripped on it and ripped off his toenail. I called the landlord to tell him what happened, and then we had to go to the emergency room. We just got the bill for that. Would the landlord be required to pay the bill? we took pictures of the shower and his toe as soon as we got back from the ER. From what I have been told, landlord's are required to carry insurance in case something like this happens. Is that true? the ER bill is very expensive, and we cannot afford to pay it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[djdj]

Yes the landlord must carry Homeowners Insurance, and you must find out who his insurance company is. If he's a decent landlord he will tell you.

But be warned if the landlord refuses to tell you you will have to sue him in small claims court AND you will NEVER get a renewal lease from him.....

Or if you dont have a lease he will evcit you in 30 days..just so you can figure out what is best for you.

 

[LL]

Better check your local laws to see if LL is really required to carry insurance which would cover you. He's a dope, of course, if he doesn't carry liability insurance. But liability coverage covers him, not you, and it is not the same as medical payments that would cover you.

If you wanted to sue him under his liability coverage, you would probably have to establish that he did something wrong and that he had notice of an unsafe condition which he didn't fix.

[Edited by younglsm on 01-29-2001 at 10:05 PM]

 

[lildevil719]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly...see, this is what happened. My b/f went to get in the tub. He put his hand against the back wall of the shower to brace himself, and the tile pushed in some, causing him to lose his balance. a while back, the shower in the upstairs bathroom was leaking, and it caused our ceiling to sag and crack. We showed this to the landlord. He had the shower upstairs fixed, but even thought we asked him repeatedly to fix our cieling, it was never done(This went on for about 6 months). The same thing that caused the ceiling to sag and crack also drained down into the walls and rotted out the drywall, which is why the accident occured. As it turns out, when he had the shower upstairs fixed, it was not done properly, so the water stopped dripping from the ceiling, but continued to run down the walls. That's the whole situation. We do have a lease, which is up at the end of March. one and a half weeks after this happened, the landlord had the tile replaced and the shower fixed, so I guess it's a good thing we took pictures...thanks again for your help, and if you can think of anything else that might help me, it'd would be greatly appreciated!!
Melissa