Leech v. Atl. Delicatessen Co.

• Citation: 140 A. 423
• Decision Date: 06 February 1928
• Docket Number: No. 121.,121.
• Parties: LEECH v. ATLANTIC DELICATESSEN CO. et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

140 A. 423

LEECH

v. ATLANTIC DELICATESSEN CO. et al.

No. 121.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Feb. 6, 1928.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action by George W. Leech against the Atlantic Delicatessen Company and others. From a judgment of nonsuit, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Bourgeois & Coulomb, of Atlantic City, for appellant.

Starr, Summerill & Lloyd, of Camden, for respondents.

KATZENBACH, J. This is an appeal from a judgment of nonsuit entered in the Supreme Court at a trial held at the Atlantic circuit. The plaintiff, George W. Leech, instituted an action to recover damages for personal injuries received by him as the result of a fall while descending a flight of stairs in the hallway of a building owned by the Atlantic Delicatessen Company, the defendant. The building was located at 1410 Atlantic avenue in the city of Atlantic City. The defendant occupied the first floor. The rooms on the remaining floors were leased to tenants. In the fall of 1922 the chairman of the Atlantic county Democratic executive committee leased for two months rooms 5 and 6 on the second floor. These rooms were used as the Democratic headquarters of the executive committee. The plaintiff was a challenger at a voting precinct in the city of Pleasantville at the election held on November 7, 1922. He had been appointed through the chairman to this position. He had been requested to bring, after the ballots in his precinct were counted, the election returns in his precinct to the headquarters.

The plaintiff left Pleasantville at 1 a. m., on November 8th. When he arrived in Atlantic City he went to the headquarters. In order to reach the headquarters it was necessary to go from the street through a door into a vestibule, then up a flight of stairs (about 15 steps) to a landing, then make a turn to the left and up a flight of 6 or 7 steps to the second floor. The headquarters were about 25 feet from the stairway. The plaintiff arrived at the building and went upstairs to the headquarters. No lights were lit in the hallways when he entered the building. He stayed at the headquarters a short time. He then left and passed through the second floor hallway to the stairway. Before starting to go down the first flight of steps to the landing he struck a match to enable him to see the surroundings. He then started down. He miscalculated the number of steps in the flight and fell. He was injured. His thigh bone was fractured. He subsequently instituted the present action.

The allegation of negligence in the complaint is that the defendant neglected and failed on the night of November 7 and 8, 1922, to light or cause to be lighted the electric lights in said hallway. The lease was offered in evidence. The lease provided that the lessor would furnish a reasonable amount of electricity for lighting said premises during business hours. There was nothing in the lease which required the lessor to light the hallway. The lease prohibited the use of the rooms for sleeping apartments. The evidence offered in behalf of the plaintiff was barren of any agreement on the part of the owner of the premises to maintain lights in the hallway during the night or any part of the night, and equally barren as to the owner and landlord having assumed the duty of providing and maintaining lights in the hallway. The evidence showed that the hallway was usually in darkness. On the night the plaintiff met with his misfortune the hallway was lighted about 7:30, but it was dark at 9, and also dark when the plaintiff entered the...