Steele v. Lifland
| Decision Date | 03 December 1928 |
| Citation | 163 N.E. 898,265 Mass. 233 |
| Parties | STEELE v. LIFLAND. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; W. P. Hall, Judge.
Action by Blanche H. Steele against Joseph Lifland. Defendant's motion for a directed verdict was allowed, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.
Badger, Pratt, Doyle & Badger and Charles C. Petersen, all of Boston, for plaintiff.
Wendell P. Murray and Alexander D. Diamond, both of Boston, for defendant.
The plaintiff was injured by falling on a common stairway in the defendant's building. The negligence relied on was the failure to furnish proper light.
On February 16, 1926, the plaintiff visited Mrs. Backman, a tenant of the defendant, ‘in connection with some dressmaking work that Mrs. Backman was doing for her.’ The tenant lived on the second floor of the four-story tenement house belonging to the defendant. The plaintiff testified that she fell on the front stairway connecting the second floor with the first floor; that she fell because of the darkness; that there was no light on the first floor and it was very dark on the stairs; that the electric light on the second floor was lighted; that she was injured about 6:30 p. m.
There was evidence tending to show that, when the defendant bought the house in December, 1924, gas fixtures were in the second floor hallway and in the first floor hallway at the foot of the stairs; that the janitor lighted the gas on the first floor until August, 1925; ‘that thereafter the defendant no longer continued to have any one light the gas jet in the lower hall’; that about June, 1925, electricity was installed in some of the apartments upstairs, and an electric light was placed in the second floor hall. It appeared that the electric light in the second floor hallway was connected with the meter in Mrs. Backman's apartment, and her rent was reduced 50 cents a month for the electricity used in the hall right.
Under the modified contract of rental to Mrs. Backman, the electric light on the second floor was kept lighted, and there was no electric light on the first floor hallway. The gas light on that floor had been discontinued. Under this agreement Mrs. Backman could not recover, if injured on the stairway, because of the absence of light on the first floor. She continued to occupy the apartment under the new contract, and was so occupying it when the plaintiff was injured, and the plaintiff had no...
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...expressed that result. Compare Carey v. Klein, 259 Mass. 90, 155 N.E. 868; Brodsky v. Fine, 263 Mass. 51, 160 N.E. 335; Steele v. Lifland, 265 Mass. 233, 163 N.E. 898. do not think that we are justified in construing these regulations as manifesting the purpose to change or add to the oblig......
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...they are otherwise safe for their intended use. Rhodes v. Fuller Land & Improvement Co., 92 N. J. Law, 569, 106 A. 400; Steele v. Lifland, 265 Mass. 233, 163 N.E. 898; Gallagher v. Murphy, 221 Mass. 363, 108 N.E. Ann. Cas. 1917E, 594; Hawes v. Chase, 84 N.H. 170, 147 A. 748; Lunde v. Northw......
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...on an owner with respect to lighting stairways. Brodsky v. Fine, 263 Mass. 51 , 54, 55. Sodekson v. Lynch, 298 Mass. 72. Steele v. Lifland, 265 Mass. 233 . There is in the record to show, and the plaintiff does not contend, that the building commissioner had in fact designated the staircase......