Cimoch v. Lomas & Nettleton Co.

The first count seeks to predicate liability under the statute on defendant’s part for failure to adequately light a rear porch of a tenement house which forms part of a common passageway connected by stairs leading from the third floor to the ground.

The statute in question (Gen. Stat. [1930] §2566) provides that: “The owner of each tenement house shall provide for the lighting of all public halls at night.” Section 2562 defines a “public hall” as that term is employed in section 2566, supra, as meaning, • “a hall, corridor or passageway not within an apartment.” It thus fails to limit the application of the term to means of passing within a tenement building, but extends it to all passageways which are for the common use of tenants or others lawfully upon them. Such all-embracing language would seem to be inclusive of exterior as well as interior passageways and so it cannot be held that the plaintiff may not be .able to establish a cause of action within the allegations of the first count.

Demurrer overruled on both grounds.