Ronay's Famous Shoes, Inc. v. St. Peter

This is a landlord-tenant action sounding in negligence. The landlords, Stuart and Patricia St. Peter, appeal from a jury award of $20,000 to their tenant. They raise only one issue in their appeal: whether the trial court erred in refusing to grant a mistrial as a matter of law after the possibility of insurance coverage was injected into the case. We hold that the court did not err and, therefore, we affirm.

Ronay’s Famous Shoes, Inc. (Ronay’s) was the first-floor tenant of defendants’ four-story building in downtown Rut-land. On December 23, 1979, Ronay’s was flooded by water pouring from a…