They'll say the landlord was negligent for letting you have it, blah blah.  

@Ben - I'm sorry to hear the mess they made; unfortunately is not unusual for tenants to act like this (sometimes out of pure negligence and some other's out of life's circumstances - please note I'm not condoning their behavior) Steve is right; here in Texas (I'm in Austin) the landlord/property management company has 30 days in which to account - in writing - expenses due a tenant after move out.

For example, if a tenant murders his neighbor you will likely be named in the suit for negligent screening of tenants.  

Just saying, be reasonable and don't get hung up so much on liability issues, you will not be negligent leasing to a music teacher!

Existing situations are less likely to be reported because it has been that way for a long time.Jail is pretty extreme for a consequence, but if someone gets harmed, you could be held responsible for criminal negligence.

I agree this is not like when you own the home you need to do your best to remedy the issue asap but some issues do take a week or more and are not due to the negligence of the property owner or manager.be aware that in oklahoma county there are lawyers that will help the tenant for free and will be more than happy to handle a case like this. 

My ultimate problem is that her negligence in paying bills on time resulted in leak going undetected for a month.

You're not negligent for natural terrain features and it's unlikely you'd be allowed to divert the water anyway.Take your liability limits up to about $5M, see your agent. 

Your lease should also say that tenants are responsible for damages, so if their negligence caused the damage, you can charge them for it.

Another point, is that CA is a comparative negligence state - so if the tenant was partly at fault for causing the dog to bit him/her, and they could somehow show you were negligent, then their recovery is offset by whatever percentage the court says they were responsible for.To find a lawyer, you can just Google dog bit defense and the state your property is in.