Hunter v. Goldstein
| Decision Date | 29 May 1929 |
| Citation | 166 N.E. 577,267 Mass. 183 |
| Parties | HUNTER v. GOLDSTEIN. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Greenhalge, Judge.
Action by Sophia Hunter against Sadie Goldstein. Verdict for defendant, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.I. N. Samuels, of Boston, and M. W. Rosenthal, of Malden, for plaintiff.
G. B. Rowell, of Boston, for defendant.
The plaintiff was injured by slipping upon some grapes in a dark common passageway in premises occuiped by her husband as a tenant at will. At the letting, it was understood that the tenant and another who occupied a tenement opening upon the passage were to take turns in cleaning the passage. It contained no stairs and was used only by these two tenants. Later the plaintiff complained to the defendant landlord, who, apparently, also lived in the premises, of the failure of the other tenant to do her share, and refused to attend to the cleaning. The defendant, it was testified, declared she would see that it was cleaned. Once in a great while the defendant ‘came down and cleaned it.’ ‘She said she would come down and clean it if it got very bad, that it was up to Mrs. Petti (the other tenant) to clean it.’ The plaintiff cleaned it about a month before the accident. A witness testified that he had often seen grapes on the floor in the hall.
Assuming the foregoing to be true, it does not make out a case for the plaintiff. The rule of law which requires landlords to care for the safety of common passageways does not place upon them the burden of finding and removing objects placed therein by the forces of nature, or by the acts of other persons which do not render them structurally defective. As was said in Watkins v. Goodall, 138 Mass. 533, 536: ‘He would be liable for negligently leaving a coal scuttle in a dangerous position, but not for not removing one so placed by another person.’ Caruso v. Lebowich, 251 Mass. 477, 479, 146 N. E. 699. There is nothing here to show when the grapes appeared in the passage, or that the defendant had anything to do with them, or knew anything of them. There is nothing to show negligence in regard to them. O'Leary v. Smith, 255 Mass. 121, 150 N. E. 878,Palladino v. De Stefano, 258 Mass. 12, 154 N. E. 187. If any agreement subsequent to the letting was made by the defendant, it was without consideration, and no liability would exist in the circumstances of this case. Bell v. Siegel, ...
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