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Borges v. Hamed

Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division
Jan 17, 1991
247 N.J. Super. 295 (App. Div. 1991)

Summary

holding that multi-family home partially occupied by owner and partially rented to relatives was not "commercial"

Summary of this case from Luchejko v. the City of Hoboken

Opinion

Submitted December 5, 1990 —

Decided January 17, 1991.

Appeal from The Superior Court, Law Division, Union County, DeStefano, J., 247 N.J. Super. 353, 589 A.2d 199.

Before Judges KING, R.S. COHEN and STERN.

Hector M. Garcia, attorney for appellant.

Edward J. Gilhooly, attorney for respondents.


Plaintiff Albertina Borges says she fell on the sidewalk in front of a three-apartment house owned by defendants Faiez and Lourdes Hamed. She sued the Hameds for damages. They moved for summary judgment, and it was granted. Plaintiff appealed, and we now affirm, substantially for the reasons stated by Judge Francis De Stefano in his opinion which appears at 247 N.J. Super. 353, 589 A.2d 199. We add only a few brief comments.

Stewart v. 104 Wallace St., Inc., 87 N.J. 146 , 432 A.2d 881 (1981), altered for commercial properties the traditional rule of no landowner liability for sidewalk defects. The new rule of liability for commercial properties was based on their nature as profit-making investments and their capacity to spread the risk of injury among tenants and business customers. The rule has been extended to private schools, Brown v. Saint Venantius School, 111 N.J. 325 , 544 A.2d 842 (1988), and two-family houses not occupied by the owner, Hambright v. Yglesias, 200 N.J. Super. 392, 491 A.2d 768 (App.Div. 1985). Here, the property is a legal three-family house owned by defendants husband and wife. They live in the third floor apartment. The wife's brothers, her mother, and stepfather occupy the second floor apartment. On the first floor live the defendant wife's sister, her husband and children. The second and first floor tenants pay rent, but there is nothing in the record to show if it yields a profit or merely covers the costs of owning and running the building. Neither party argues the point.

This vertical family compound cannot be considered a commercial property. We do not consider what should be the result if defendants lived in one apartment and rented the other two at market rates, and we express no view as to the use in this context of the anti-eviction statute and its exemption for owner-occupied premises with not more than two rental units. See N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1.

Affirmed.


Summaries of

Borges v. Hamed

Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division
Jan 17, 1991
247 N.J. Super. 295 (App. Div. 1991)

holding that multi-family home partially occupied by owner and partially rented to relatives was not "commercial"

Summary of this case from Luchejko v. the City of Hoboken

holding that a multi-family home partially occupied by the owner and partially rented to relatives was not commercial

Summary of this case from Valentine v. Almanzar

indicating that a three-family owner-occupied home is residential where the owner lived on the third floor and rented the other two floors to family members without evidence in the record of profit, and expressing no view whether the result would be different if an owner “lived in one apartment and rented the other two [apartments] at market rates”

Summary of this case from Grijalba v. Floro

In Borges v. Hamed, 247 N.J. Super. 295 (App.Div. 1991), we refused to impose Stewart liability on a three-family residence where the owners resided in one apartment and other family members resided in the other two apartments.

Summary of this case from Wilson v. Jacobs

In Borges v. Hamed, 247 N.J. Super. 295, 589 A.2d 169 (App.Div. 1991), we affirmed a Law Division judgment which declined to extend the Stewart rule to a three-family residential building in which the owners occupied one apartment, and other members of the same family occupied the remaining apartments.

Summary of this case from Avallone v. Mortimer
Case details for

Borges v. Hamed

Case Details

Full title:ALBERTINA BORGES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, v. FAIEZ HAMED AND LOURDES HAMED…

Court:Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division

Date published: Jan 17, 1991

Citations

247 N.J. Super. 295 (App. Div. 1991)
589 A.2d 169

Citing Cases

Smith v. Young

Id. at 205, 578 A.2d 1264. In Borges v. Hamed, 247 N.J. Super. 353, 589 A.2d 199 (Law Div. 1990), aff'd o.b.,…

Grijalba v. Floro

For example, if the property is owned for investment or business purposes the property is classified as…