Case Name: Charles W. Butler et al., Resp'ts, v. Nathan Cushing, App'lt
Court: New York Supreme Court, General Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1888-05-14
Citations: 15 N.Y. St. Rep. 903
Docket Number: 
Parties: Charles W. Butler et al., Resp’ts, v. Nathan Cushing, App’lt.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York State Reporter
Volume: 15
Pages: 903–903

Head Matter:
Charles W. Butler et al., Resp’ts, v. Nathan Cushing, App’lt.
(Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department,
Filed May 14, 1888.)
Landlord and tenant—Liability of landlord to tenant for acts DONE AFFECTING PREMISES.
Where the owner of a building, rented to tenants, during the lease attempts to raise it without notice to them and without their assent, he takes the risk of his acts.
Motion for the re-argument of an appeal to the general term.
Albert Stickney, for app’lt.
See S. C., 12 N. Y. State Rep., 610.

Opinion:
Barnard, P. J.
—A re-examination of this case fails to show any ground for a re-argument. The case was tried upon the theory that the plaintiff must recover, if at all, upon proof of negligence by the defendant or his servants which occasioned the injury and upon proof that the accident was not occasioned by the neglect of the plaintiff. Under the strict rule, we thought that the evidence was abundant to uphold a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. It was .shown that the defendant, without warning to his tenants in The upper part of the building, threw the building suddenly down. That this was the result of an attempt to raise an interior partition so as to make level the floors. There was proof from which the jury could find negligence in the methods used to do the work itself. We, also, thought that in such a case as this, where the owner undertook to raise a building rented to, tenants under fixed terms and_ during the lease, without notice to them and without their assent, such owner took the risk of his acts. That such owner could not, even with an honest intent to repair a portion of the building not rented, escape liability where he prostrated the building thereby by an averment that the work was carefully done. The cases cited by defendant upon this motion do not, as we think, change this result.
The motion should, therefore, be denied, with ten dollars costs.
Dykman and Pratt, JJ., concur.