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Show ! THE READER'S COURTROOM Upstairs Tenant, Downstairs Drip By Will Bernard, LL.B. Is an Upstairs Tenant Liable for Letting Water Drip on the Floor? A pair of newlyweds moved into a flat over a stationery store. One evening, the wife absent-mindedly left the faucet running In the wash basin with the plug in! During the night, water leaked steadily through the floor and dripped onto some merchandise in the store below. A traveller began descending an outdoor stairway leading to a railroad rail-road depot. He didn't hold onto the handrail even though he noticed the steps were still icy from a recent re-cent snowfall. Sure enough, he slipped and broke his wrist. Later he filed a damage suit, blaming the railroad for not keeping the steps clean. But the court granted him nothing. The judge ruled that, even if the railroad employees were negligent, so was the traveller. Since the danger was so obvious, he should have used the railing. Do Courts Recognize The Law of Gravity? A telephone repairman was aloft one day, fixing a wire, when the cross-arm on which he was leaning lean-ing suddenly broke off. Injured in the fall, the repairman sued the company for damages. In nis petition, peti-tion, he told everything that had happened except that he forgot to mention dropping to the ground! The company promptly seized upon mm The merchant later filed suit tor the damages he had sustained. At the trial, the young couple protested pro-tested that the mishap had been "absolutely unintentional," but the court decided they were liable anyhow. any-how. The judge said that each tenant in a building must use "reasonable "rea-sonable care" not to damage the property of fellow-tenants. A 10-year-old girl, riding on one of the "flying horses" on a merry-go-round, decided upon an experiment. experi-ment. Taying no heed to warnings posted on the wall, she dismounted, looked around a bit and then tried to climb back on. But as she did so, the heel of the descending horse struck and injured her ankle. She later brought suit against the owner for damages, but the court ruled against her. The judge said that, by disobeying the posted rules, she had "brought hr injury upon her-elt" this technicality to insist that the claim was no good. The company argued that, in presenting a legal claim, nothing may be "left to the imagination." However, the judge brushed aside that objection and allowed the repairman to collect. He said the court took it for granted that, when the cross-arm broke, the law of gravity took over the situation! |
