Suydam v. Jackson

The plaintiff leased a store to the defendant, whose roof gradually decayed and began leaking due to age and weather; the defendant never attempted any repair as the leak steadily worsened, and once the premises became uninhabitable, simply notified the plaintiff he was vacating rather than fixing the roof. The plaintiff sued for unpaid rent, the trial court ruled in the plaintiff's favor, and the defendant appealed, relying on a state statute allowing a tenant to surrender premises that were, through no fault of the tenant, destroyed or injured to the point of uninhabitability.