Case ID: ad_117/html/0882-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Gaynor, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Martha F. Hoch, Respondent, v. Brooklyn Borough Gas Company, Appellant.
    Second Department,
    March 22, 1907.
    Gas —refusal to supply gas for failure of applicant to pay sums due from a former occupant—when penalty recoverable.
    The penalty and forfeiture imposed hy section 65 of chapter 566 of the Laws of 1890 on a gas company for failure to supply an applicant with gas notwithstanding arrears are due from a former occupant of the building contemplates a continuation of the supply of gas after it has been begun.
    
      Appeal by the defendant, the Brooklyn Borough Gas Company, from a judgment of the Municipal Court of the city of Mew York in favor of the plaintiff, and also from an order denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial made upon the minutes.
    The plaintiff made a written application to the defendant to have her hotel supplied with gas, and it complied therewith in May, 1904. The bills therefor were rendered and paid weekly up to the following September. The defendant then demanded that the plaintiff pay $8.25 due for the current week and also $22.76 which was due * to it by a former occupant of the plaintiff’s premises for gas furnished to him, and because she refused to pay it the defendant disconnected her premises from its main and refused to supply her with gas, until the following December 20th, when it received the said $8.25 and resumed the supplying of gas to her. She offered to' pay the $8.25 for the week she owed it for, both before and after the gas was cut off, but tire defendant refused to receive it on or in payment of that bill, until December 20th. It. demanded that both that sum and the $22.76 *be paid to save the gas from being cut off, and cut it off because she would not pay both sums.
    
      George O. JEldridge [Arthur H. Cameron with him on the brief], 'for the appellant.
    
      Henry Herrold, for the respondent.
   Gaynor, J.:

This action was brought to recover the statutory penalties for the refusal of a gas company to supply gas to the occupant of a build-. ing. The statute is that if an owner or occupant of a building situated within 100 feet of a main of a gas company make application in writing to the company to be supplied with gas, and pay the deposit required by the statute, the company shall supply such gas, notwithstanding there may be arrears due for gas supplied by it to a former occupant of the building ; and that if it refusa or neglect to do so for ten days it shall forfeit and pay to the applicant teñí' dollars and also five dollar's a day thereafter while such neglect or refusal continues (Laws of 1890, chap. 566, § 65).

The contention of the defendant is that the statute only covers the case of a neglect or refusal to begin to supply gas after such written request; that it does not cover a case where the supply has been cut off after having beén begun. On the contrary, the statute contemplates a continuance of the supply after it has been begun, and the -payment of the daily penalty for any interruption thereof by the defendant amounting to a neglect or refusal to supply gas (Meiers v. Metropolitan Gas Light Co., 11 Daly, 119).

The judgment and order should be affirmed.

HiRSdHBERG, P. J.-, Hooker, Bids and Miller, Jj., concurred.

Judgment of the Municipal Court affirmed, with costs.