Cronin v. Cabot Real Estate Co.

Headnote

Assault — master and servant — when owner of apartment house liable for act of elevator operator, his employee, in assaulting tenant.

Cronin v. Cabot Real Estate Co., 196 App. Div. 888 , affirmed.

Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered March 21, 1921, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a verdict. The action was to recover for an alleged assault. The plaintiff upon the 19th day of November, 1918, and for a period of nine years prior thereto was a tenant of the premises known as No. 606 West One Hundred and Sixteenth street, in the city of New York. Contained within the said premises, which were owned by the defendant, was an elevator provided by the defendant for the use of tenants and others lawfully thereon. The elevator was operated by an employee, of the defendant. Upon the date given, the plaintiff desired to go to his apartment by means of the elevator in the building. To attract the attention of the defendant’s operator, the plaintiff pressed a bell in the lower hall; but the elevator did not stop at the ground floor at which plaintiff desired to enter until it had actually made two or three trips. When the elevator finally did stop at the ground floor, the plaintiff said: “ That is a devil of a way to keep a tenant waiting here six or seven minutes to go upstairs,” and the elevator man replied: “ You walk upstairs. I will not take you.” The plaintiff was in the act of saying: “ Yes, you will,” when the operator of the

elevator seized him and pressed him against the folding door of the elevator and otherwise assaulted him in trying to prevent plaintiff’s entering thereupon.