110 Misc. 323 | N.Y. App. Term. | 1920
Plaintiff sued for injuries received while a tenant in defendant’s tenement house. On the 1st of February, 1919, after sunset, she endeavored to leave her apartment and found the hallway of her floor and the stairway leading therefrom in total darkness. She approached the stairway carefully, and in reaching for the balustrade missed her step and fell down the stairway causing injuries for which she sues. The respondent endeavors to sustain the judgment upon the theory that, conceding defendant’s liability for violation of section 76 of the Tenement House Law requiring the hallway and stairs to be kept illumined by burning lights, plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as matter of law because she continued her endeavor to leave her apartment notwithstanding the darkness and without procuring a light. In support of this proposition, defendant cites, among others, the cases of Piper v. New York Central & H. R. R. R. Co., 156 N. Y. 224 (which of course was not concerned with a tenement house), Brugher v. Buchtenkirch, 167 id. 153 (in which the opinion particularly described the building as “ not subject to the Tenement HouseLaw ”), and Rohrbacher v. Gillig, 203 id. 413 (in which the building in which the accident occurred is described as a business building; moreover, in the last two cases- it was not a tenant that was injured). The principal case cited by
GrUY and Wagner, JJ., concur.
Judgment reversed, and new trial granted, with thirty dollars costs to appellant to abide event.