Scully v. Fitzgerald

A landlord has a duty to keep areas within his control in a reasonably safe condition so as not to endanger the lives or property of his tenants. In this case, plaintiff, a commercial tenant, claims that defendant, his landlord, breached that duty because of the dangerous manner in which he maintained an open storage area with construction debris and refuse and because he should have been aware that tenants discarded cigarette butts in direct proximity to those flammable materials, creating a substantial fire hazard. Plaintiff contends that defendant’s negligence *119was the proximate cause of a…