| Venue: | NY Ct. App. |
| Facts: | A section of a building's wall collapses onto Madison Ave. Big safety concerns, and they result from a remodeling project. The area is closed for about 2 weeks. This clobbered businesses there. |
| Posture: | Dismissed at trial (no duty of care). Actually, there are several cases consolidated here. |
| Issue: | What is a landholder's duty in negligence when a plaintiff's sole injury is lost income, and what about public nuisance also? |
| Holding: | No duty about economic loss, but there is duty regarding nuisance. Dismissal is affirmed. |
| Rule: | Liability depends on duty. There wasn't one here. |
| Reasoning: | It's up to the courts to say where duties begin and end, and there
are various factors to consider (proliferation of claims,
public policies, etc.). Tort law is a means of apportioning
risks and allocating the burden of loss. Foreseeability alone
does not make a duty: you need something running directly to
the injured party.
Landowners who engage in activities that might injure neighbors are obligated to use reasonable care not to injure them. But this doesn't extend to protecting them from loss of business. Yes, this is a somewhat arbitrary policy: they all are. |
| Dicta: | |