Court: Rape victim can sue landlord.Court overturns ruling in '92 attack The New York State Court of Appeals court of appeals n. any court (state or federal) which hears appeals from judgments and rulings of trial courts or lower appeals courts. (See: court) has ruled that a woman who was attacked in her Lefrak City apartment can move forward with a lawsuit against the landlord. In the July 2 decision, the Court of Appeals found that the woman's failure to look through a peephole before opening the door to her assailant did not absolve the landlord of responsibility. The ruling reversed a decision of a lower court, which had dismissed the suit. The lawsuit stemmed from a 1992 incident in which the woman opened the door to ex-convict Lawrence Toole who allegedly beat, raped and sodomized her at gunpoint. Shortly before the attack, the woman had received a phone call from her live-in boyfriend saying he would be upstairs in five minutes. After the doorbell rang, she opened the door believing it was her boyfriend. The woman sued the building owners -- named in court documents as U.E.S.S. Leasing Corporation and Builders and Realtors Corporation, Inc. -- and Mid-City Security Service, Inc, the firm that provided security services at the complex. In the lawsuit, the woman alleges that the landlord negligently allowed Toole to enter the building, Mid City negligently performed its security contract and the landlord "breached the implied warranty implied warranty n. an assumption at law that products are "merchantable," meaning they work and are useable as normally expected by consumers, unless there is a warning that they are sold "as is" or second-hand without any warranty. A grant deed of real property carries the implied warranty of good title, meaning the grantor (seller) had a title (ownership) to transfer. (See: implied, caveat emptor) of habitability by failing to properly staff the security desk or secure the complex," according to court documents. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgement, which the Supreme Court granted. In dismissing the case, the court said the woman failed to show that the landlord's negligence was the result of her injuries. A divided Appellate Division reversed the Supreme Court decision, saying a "question of fact question of fact n. in a lawsuit or criminal prosecution, an issue of fact in which the truth or falsity (or a mix of the two) must be determined by the "trier of fact" (the jury or the judge in a non-jury trial) in order to reach a decision in the case. A "question of fact" may also be raised in a motion for summary judgment which asks the court to determine whether there are any questions of fact to be tried, allowing the judge to rule on the case existed as to whether defendants negligently permitted Toole, a nonresident and known troublemaker, to enter the building." The July 2 decision by the Court of Appeals upheld the Appellate Division decision. Landlords have a common-law duty to take minimal precautions to protect tenants from foreseeable harm, including foreseeable criminal conduct by a third person. Toole, who had relatives living in the complex, had been arrested in connection with several criminal acts in the complex, including robbery, attempted rape, and the beating of a security guard. He had been arrested on the premises and the landlord kept an arrest photo of him, the court of appeals said. "On a motion for summary judgement, a plaintiff need only raise a triable issue of fact regarding whether defendant's conduct proximately caused plaintiffs injuries. Here, questions of fact remain as to whether defendants negligently failed to exclude Toole," the court ruled. "More discovery is warranted to discern how foreseeable a risk he was and what measures defendants had in place to deal with him." |
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