Ocean Prime, LLC, owns buildings at 1 West Street and 17 Battery Park Place in New York City in an area known to be vulnerable to flooding.

The buildings include nearly five hundred residential apartments and fifteen floors of commercial space. During Superstorm Sandy, water flooded the buildings’ basements and garages, damaging mechanical and electrical systems.

Heating oil that had been delivered a few days earlier was released into the water. The damage and the fumes made the premises uninhabitable for a month for residential tenants and longer for commercial tenants. The tenants filed a suit in a New York state court against the landlord. They alleged that the landlord had been negligent in failing to protect the property from flooding and had breached the warranty of habitability. Do these circumstances indicate a violation of the landlord’s duty to maintain the premises? What are the tenants’ options? Discuss.