Tobias v. Lewis

Headnote

Negligence — landlord and tenant — when owner of tenement house not liable for injury to child of tenant struck by board which fell upon her while she was standing in front of building.

Tobias v. Lewis, 182 App. Div. 598 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment entered April 29, 1918, upon an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, reversing a judgment in

favor of plaintiff, entered upon a verdict and directing a dismissal of the complaint. The action was to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by-plaintiff through the negligence of defendants, the owners of a five-story tenement house at 252 Monroe street in the borough of Manhattan, city of New York. Each of the front apartments has two windows overlooking the street. There were fire escapes on the front of the building, each one extending across the front of the two center windows, thus giving access thereto from each of the front apartments. In the fieor of each fire escape there was an opening from which was suspended the ladder leading to the floor below. On the evening of August 28, 1914, the infant plaintiff, who had been living in the house for a period of about one year, was standing on the sidewalk near the stoop when she was struck on the head and severely injured by an extension leaf of a table which came from somewhere above, and sustained the injuries to recover for which this action was brought. There was testimony that it was the custom of the tenants who lived in the front apartments to cover over the openings in the fire escapes with table boards, and sleep there to the knowledge of defendants or their agents. The Appellate Division held that the facts did not, as matter of law, make out a case of negligence against the defendants.