Tenant Raped in Laundry Room

Tenant was raped in the laundry room of cooperative garden apartment complex by someone who was a house guest of an employee of landlord's sales agent at the building. The assailant was convicted and tenant sued the cooperative corporation, the sales agent, its employee, the partnership that originally developed the apartments, and its individual partners. Tenant claimed that negligent maintenance of the development contributed to the rape and that the sales agent was liable for the negligence of its employee, who let the rapist in as a guest. The Supreme Court of Nassau County dismissed the case against the employee because he didn't know, and had no reason to know of, his guest's propensities. The court denied all other defendants' requests to dismiss the case without trial. All appealed. The appeals court found that the sales agent wasn't liable because its employee was found not liable and the agent didn't manage the building. The partnership and partners weren't liable because they had sold the building to the cooperative corporation two years before the incident. And the co-op corporation wasn't liable because there was no proof of criminal activity in the area that would have put landlord on notice of a reason for heightened security

[Provenzano v. Roslyn Gardens Tenants Corp.: NYLJ, p. 33, col. 4 (2/11/93) (App. Div. 2 Dept.; Bracken, JP, Balletta, Ritter, Copertino, JJ)].