Maine Superior Court Justice Thomas Warren in December sentenced Portland, Maine, landlord Gregory Nisbet to 90 days in jail and fined Nisbet $1,000 (the maximum allowed) for a building code violation, after finding Nisbet not guilty in October of manslaughter in the deaths of six people in a 2014 house fire.
During Nisbet’s trial, attorneys clashed over the question of whether Nisbet’s property should be classed as a rooming house, covered by code egress and fire detection system requirements, as described in a Press Herald report in October (see: “Sides in landlord’s trial clash over safety requirements for building where fire killed six,” by Randy Billings). “The Portland apartment building that caught fire two years ago, killing six people, was being run as a rooming house that lacked the required fire detection systems and escape routes to give residents a better chance to survive, [Assistant Fire Marshal Richard McCarthy] testified,” the paper reported.
But in acquitting Nisbet of manslaughter charges, Justice Warren disagreed. “Under the fire code, as it applies in Portland, a group of friends or acquaintances can rent a dwelling unit together and be considered to be a family, allowing the dwelling unit to continue to qualify as a one family dwelling,” Warren said (see: “Portland Landlord Found Not Guilty on Six Manslaughter Counts,” by Patty Wight/Maine Public Radio).
“For Gregory Nisbet to be found guilty of manslaughter, prosecutors had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his negligence caused the deaths of the six young adults who perished at his property after a discarded cigarette butt on the front porch ignited a fire on November 1st, 2014,” Maine Publice Radio reported. The judge ruled that the burden of proof had not been satisfied, saying: ““The court cannot find that it is almost certainly true that the deceased occupants would have been able to survive if there had been no conduct by defendant that was either reckless or criminally negligent.”
And since he had not determined that the rental property was, technically, a rooming house, Warren did not convict landlord Nisbet of six violations of that code. However, he did find Nisbet in violation of a single-family code requirement, for having third floor windows in the house too small to serve as a means of egress. This was the violation that drew the 90-day jail term.
While far less severe than the potential sentence for manslaughter in a fire that killed six young people in their twenties, the 90-day jail term for a code violation still got the attention of area landlords, the Press Herald reported (see: “Among Greater Portland landlords, ‘shock waves’ from Nisbet jail sentence,” by Dennis Hoey). “This is a big deal. It’s shocking,” said Brit Vitalius, president of the Southern Maine Landlord Association. “The judge has certainly made a game-changing call. It’s just a completely different approach to code issues.”
Vitalius told Maine Public Radio, “You can bet that landlords are going to start selling their buildings because they don’t want to deal with this kind of liability, or you’re going to see a lot of holes being cut in the sides of buildings.” (See: “Portland Landlord’s Jail Sentence Seen as ‘Bad Move’ by Some Other Landlords,” by Fred Bever) “We’ve got all sorts of challenges with this old housing stock. And this was a very bad move on the judge’s part.” But other area landlords took a different view, saying that landlords should assume the burden of maintaining safe conditions in rental units.
Maine Public Radio’s continuing coverage of the fire and its aftermath is here (see: “Gregory Nisbet“).
