Ziskin v. Confietto

The plaintiffs, who brought suit on the grounds of both negligence and nuisance, claimed to have proved the following facts: The defendants owned a three-family tenement house. The plaintiffs were tenants and lived on the first floor. Entrance to the front was by way of a concrete walk which gradually sloped upward from the sidewalk to the veranda steps. The walk and steps were used in common by all the tenants and were under the defendants' control. There were no railings at the sides of the steps. The riser of the bottom step was slightly higher than the others. On December 31, 1945, rain, snow and sleet fell throughout the day until about 6 p.m. The temperature was freezing and the sidewalks were hazardous and slippery. About 10:30 that morning the defendant John Confietto had sanded the walk, but at 8 o'clock that evening it was still very slippery, the ice being one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch thick. There was no sand on the walk at that time. About 8 o'clock the plaintiff Bessie Ziskin, wearing rubbers, was descending the steps in a careful manner. When she reached the bottom she put her foot down on the walk. Because of the icy and slippery condition, the inadequate lighting, the lack of a handrail and the slope of the walk, together with the difference in the height of the bottom step as compared with the others, she slipped and fell, sustaining serious injuries.