Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Possibly. However, this is a mainly negligence question, not primarily one of real estate law, and for a full discussion of what he would have to plead and prove to get a judgment against the landlord, I think you'd be better off re-asking your question under a different LawGuru category. My guess is that he would have to show that the landlord knew of the tenant's dangerous proclivities and had a duty not to rent to him for that reason. Seems a bit farfetched.

There is no duty of care owed to the neighborhood not to rent to any given person. If you think about it, it becomes obvious, since no landlord could ever get insurance without running a criminal background check on every person who applies, and people with violent histories could never be tenants. Since that obviously is not the case, that should answer your question. There are certain duties owed by landlords to the other tenants in a building, but even then only after the landlord has notice of the problem tenant's ongoing actions and fails to do anything about it. If the tenant establishes a pattern and practice of creating problems in the neighborhood, it might rise to the level of a nuisance that might be actionable by neighbors, but that has to be something continuing and ongoing, such as knowingly renting to a crack house or gang headquarters. Even then the remedy is usually injunctive, not monetary.

I agree with Mr. McCormick. I fail to see how the landlord could foresee the tenant would do this, or even take any effective legal action to prevent it. Criminal acts are almost always intervening and superseding causes in negligence law, which would absolve the landlord of any liability.