Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Massachusetts

Re: Who's responsible for tenant's misconduct?

The police enforce the criminal laws of the Commonwealth, and they can bring criminal charges against an individual. In this case, perhaps a charge for malicious damage to property. The charged individual will have to be shown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. With no witnesses, that will be hard to achieve. Therefor the police may not be interested in starting a criminal prosecution, against someone who will not ultimately be convicted. They view it as a waste of time, most likely.

You could bring a civil claim against the landlord, or whoever you believe you can prove to a "preponderance of the evidence" (a "more likely than not" standard), that the landlord or one of his tenants hit the fence. The landlord may defend that it is just as likely that a contractor or someone else did the damage, and he is not responsible. You could bring the complaint yourself in small claims court. You could have an attorney represent you there, but it is not necessary to hire an attorney to go to small claims court. An attorney would have to charge a lot more than $400 to take the case to a trial... at least I know I would. Good luck, in your endeavors to recover.

Tom Workman

Re: Who's responsible for tenant's misconduct?

I think you should bring a suit in

Small Claims court. It only costs you about $19

to file, plus the time to file it and then the time

at the courthouse on the date of the hearing.

The good news is that it drags the landlord into court, too,

and if he doesn't show, you are much more likely to win,

at least by default. If you have been specific about the

amount you are suing for, you can win automatically,

usually. But one downside is that collecting is difficult

even if you win if the landlord doesn't just write a

check ... but I'd love to help with that! You can

put a lien on the property and/or collect rent from

his tenants if he balks at paying, but that's still

a lot of bother.)

Another problem is that you have the burden of proof.

"Proof" means showing some evidence that makes it more

probable than not; it doesn't mean the same thing as

in a criminal case where the government has to prove

guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, you

don't need a lot of proof, but I'm not sure you have

enough, either.

The landlord is 100% responsible for what his workers

do, but it is unlikely that he'd be held responsible

for what the tenants do. (That would take more of

a stretch.)