Summary
In Roth v. Prudential Life Ins. Co. (266 App. Div. 872), a judgment entered on the verdict in favor of the plaintiffs was reversed and the complaint was dismissed where it appeared that the plaintiff was injured as a result of defective weatherstripping on the saddle of a door which caused her to fall.
Summary of this case from Kreger v. LaddOpinion
June 21, 1943.
Action to recover damages for personal injuries suffered by plaintiff wife when she fell over a doorsill in premises owned by Prudential Insurance Company and occupied by appellant, and by her husband for loss of services and for expenses. Judgment, entered on the verdict of the jury in favor of the plaintiffs, unanimously reversed on the law, with costs, and the complaint dismissed on the law, with costs. The findings of fact implicit in the jury's verdict are affirmed. Plaintiff Mollie Roth was a social guest in defendant Kase's home. As the result of defective weatherstripping on the saddle of a door she fell and was injured. Having come upon the premises, a one-family dwelling, for social purposes, she was not an invitee in a business sense, but a licensee, and as such took the premises as she found them. The appellant is not liable unless the proximate cause of injury was something in the nature of a trap or of an affirmative act of negligence, neither of which was established. ( Patnode v. Foote, 153 App. Div. 494; Mendelowitz v. Neisner, 258 N.Y. 181; Restatement, Torts, §§ 331, 332; Plummer v. Dill, 156 Mass. 426; Bugeja v. Butze, 26 N.Y.S.2d 989.) Hagarty, Carswell, Adel, Taylor and Lewis, JJ., concur.