Maloney v. Hearst Hotels Corporation

In the subcellar of the Ritz Tower Hotel, two stories below the street, the defendant had maintained for years a general storeroom including a paint room and paint shop wherein were kept or stored large quantities of paints, lacquers, benzine, gasoline, turpentine, alcohol and other highly volatile and explosive liquids. Defendant operated a painting establishment there with eight painters and a foreman. The storeroom lacked efficient ventilation. The quantity of these paints exceeded a hundred gallons.

On August 1, 1932, a fire broke out in the subcellar, which the New York Fire Department…