Marsh v. Riley

Hatcher, President:

Charging the landlord with knowingly maintaining an unsafe water-heater in his tenement house, the plaintiff recovered a verdict for injuries allegedly occasioned by the heater. The trial court set the verdict aside.

Several rental apartments had a common bathroom. The bath water was heated in a tank by a gas stove, located about fourteen * inches off the bathroom floor near the spigot end of the bathtub. The stove door had no latch and without a fastening of some kind would not remain closed. According to evidence for defendants, the door was provided with an effective wire…