Opinion
January 11, 1994
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Harold Baer, Jr., J.).
It is alleged that the municipal defendants failed to enforce safety laws affecting loft residences, even after a meeting between the tenants of the subject building and the Loft Board, and are therefore liable for the destruction of one tenant's loft by fire. There has been no pleading or showing of a special relationship between the municipality and an individual or identified class of persons warranting the imposition of a duty to use reasonable care for the special benefit of particular persons (see, Garrett v. Holiday Inns, 58 N.Y.2d 253, 261), as it is not alleged that affirmative personal assurance was made to the tenant party (see, Bardavid v. New York City Tr. Auth., 61 N.Y.2d 986). Further, the regulation of loft housing does not present an instance where disregard of a statutory command "results in damage to one of the class for whose especial benefit the statute was enacted" (Motyka v. City of Amsterdam, 15 N.Y.2d 134, 139), since it was not the purpose of the Loft Law to create new rights not previously enjoyed by the general public and confer them solely on loft dwellers, but to give loft dwellers the protection previously enjoyed by apartment and house dwellers by bringing loft residences into the existing scheme of residential regulation (see, Blackgold Realty Corp. v. Milne, 119 A.D.2d 512, 515, affd 69 N.Y.2d 719).
Concur — Ellerin, J.P., Asch, Rubin and Nardelli, JJ.