Rodriguez v. City of New York

In this case, as in Rivera v Nelson Realty, LLC (20 AD3d 316 [2005]), my colleagues dismiss a claim against a landlord where a child was severely burned on a metal radiator, with the reasoning that as a matter of law, the failure to provide a radiator cover in an apartment does not create the type of hazardous condition for which a landlord may be held liable. In my view, in both cases this ruling ignores the obligation of property owners, and the factual question of whether that obligation has been satisfied.

The infant plaintiff and her mother were living in a single room in a homeless…