OK. Thanks for volunteering your expertise in this.
Personally I do sense that the tenant who did the subletting may be in for some rough legal seas in the near future.
I just cannot help wondering about sublets in general though. A blanket exemption from culpability under any circumstances sounds a bit extreme to me, unless subletting is expressly forbidden by the owner-tenant forms (as of course would often be the case in a straightforward simple rental).
If what you say is correct, then arrangements that college students make to rent homes (let’s say that the owner knows and permits the arrangement) seem as if they would put the students that sign on the dotted line of the umbrella owner-tenant agreement at disparate risk relative to their subletting buddies, for example. (Note: I don’t have any big expertise in this area myself... just wondering in general...)
My reference point is the state approved forms. That doesn’t mean the owner and the lesees used those forms.