Case Name: LANTRY, Fire Com'r, v. MEDE
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1908-03-05
Citations: 108 N.Y.S. 1099
Docket Number: 
Parties: LANTRY, Fire Com’r, v. MEDE.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 108
Pages: 1099–1101

Head Matter:
LANTRY, Fire Com’r, v. MEDE.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Term.
March 5, 1908.)
Health:—Unsafe Buildings—“Other Thing.”
Greater New York Charter, Laws 1901, p. 323, c. 466, § 780, authorizes the marshal to enter any building to examine “the stoves and pipes thereto, ranges, furnaces and heating apparatus of every kind whatsoever, including the chimneys, flues and pipes with which the same may be connected, engine rooms, boilers, ovens, kettles, and also all chemical apparatus or other things which in his opinion may be dangerous in causing or promoting fires.” Held, that the “other things” are not limited to the classes previously specified, and that a dumb-waiter shaft, extending from the basement to the roof, but without connection with the outer air at the roof, may be condemned as dangerous, and specific changes ordered therein.
[Ed. Note.—For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, vol. 6, p. 5101.]
MacLean, J., dissenting.
Appeal from Municipal Court, Borough of Manhattan, Sixth District.
Action by Francis J. Lantry, fire commissioner of the city of New York against Albert Mede. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff Reversed
Argued before GILDERSLEEVE, P. J., and BISCHOFE and MacLEAN, JJ.
Francis K. Pendleton (Herman Stiefel and William J. Millard, of -counsel), for appellant.
Ira J. Ettinger, for respondent

Opinion:
BISCHOEF, J.
As I construe the statute under consideration (Charter, Laws 1901, p. 323, c. 466, § 780), the discretion vested in the official was not limited to matters of the very classes previously specified. The rule "noscitur a sociis" does not have cogent application here, since the word "other" is used in connection with things which in "the opinion" of the official were dangerous. It cannot be said that the Legislature, when specifying certain things, enacted into law the fact that a marshal deemed these very things dangerous, and yet, without some such assumption, the statute cannot be taken to restrict the "other" things— left to his opinion as to their dangerous character—to the specified matters of probable danger. The commissioner is given discretionary powers in the matter of proceeding upon the marshal's report, and the apparent purpose of the statute is to leave much to his personal opinion relative to the manner in which things of danger should be treated, whether by removal or by remedying their defects, for the lessening of the cause of fires, or for the protection of firemen and the occupants of buildings in case of fires.
Taking this section of the charter as a whole, the purpose is ¿plain, and the meaning of the words "or other things which in his opinion may be dangerous in causing or promoting fires" is not confined to-any exact class of dangerous appurtenances. "Ex antecedentibus et consequentibus fit optima interpretado." Looking to the provisions of this section of the charter which precede and follow the words in question, I have no doubt that the statute should be interpreted to-include the matter to which the commissioner's order was directed in the present case. Sutherland, Stat. Const. § 279; Given v. Hilton, 95 U. S. 591, 598, 24 L. Ed. 458; White v. U. S., 191 U. S. 552, 24 Sup. Ct. 171, 48 L. Ed. 295; Wolsey v. Chapman, 101 U. S. 769, 25 L. Ed. 915; Matter of Board of Street Opening, 133 N. Y. 329, 31 N. E. 102, 16 L. R. A. 180, 28 Am. St. Rep. 640.
The judgment should be reversed, and a new trial ordered, with, costs to appellant to abide the event.
GILDERSLEEVE, P. J., concurs.