Tenant's Bookkeeper Assaulted Another Tenant

Tenant sued landlord for negligence after she was attacked in her apartment by a bookkeeper employed by another tenant. Landlord asked the court to dismiss the case without a trial. The court ruled for landlord, and tenant appealed. The appeals court also ruled against tenant. Even if it was a negligent lapse of the building's security for landlord to permit the other tenant to use his apartment as an office, in violation of the building's C of 0, it wasn't a normal or foreseeable consequence that the tenant would employ a bookkeeper who would burglarize and attack another tenant in the building.

Belinkie v. Zucker. NYLJ, p. 29, col. 1 (11/23/98) (App. Div. 1 Dept.; Nardelli, JP, Tom, Andrias, Saxe, JJ)