Sheehan v. East 98th Street Corp.

On March 11, 1922, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, Nellie Sheehan fell down the cellar stairs in a tenement house at 124 East Ninety-eighth street, borough of Manhattan, city of New York. She had lived in the house eighteen years, and her apartment was on the ground floor on the right-hand side.

On the left-hand side of the public hallway on this ground floor, about fifteen feet back from the main entrance, there was a door which opened onto the top landing of the cellar stairs. The landing was a little below the level of the hallway floor. As the plaintiff • stepped from the hallway…