A nonsmoking tenant filed a pro se lawsuit against a smoking tenant and the landlord, bringing claims alleging battery, negligence and trespass as a result of cigarette smoke invading his property.  DeNardo withheld some of his rent, alleging that his apartment was no longer habitable.  The landlord sent him an eviction notice.   The Superior Court granted summary judgment to the defendants.  The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed, ruling that, while DeNardo claimed he suffered from “anxiety, nausea, headaches, dizziness, sleeplessness, and general ill feeling,” because of the secondhand smoke, “DeNardo was never medically evaluated for these alleged ill effects.”  Summary judgment was entered for the defendants since the plaintiff did not allege deliberate contact.  The Alaska Supreme Court was also “unwilling to conclude that oral notice of infiltration of secondhand cigarette smoke from a neighbor’s apartment is sufficient to excuse a tenant from being ‘in default in rent’ for the purpose of” the Alaska statute.  Thus, his being in default in rent was proper justification for the landlord’s eviction notice.

2007 Alas. LEXIS 78