Opinion
Gen. No. 41,932. (Abstract of Decision.)
Opinion filed June 1, 1942 Rehearing denied June 16, 1942
LANDLORD AND TENANT, § 122 — as to liability for injuries to tenants and occupants. Where a third party started a fire in an apartment building and one occupant lost her life and another was injured in the fire, in an action to recover for their death or injury, on a charge that defendant was negligent in permitting combustible matter to remain in the rear areaway of plaintiffs' apartment, and it appeared there was a rubbish barrel in the rear areaway which was cleaned daily and some window screens stacked beneath wooden stairs with a mattress or carpet over them, the act of the third party in starting the fire was an independent act, which, if it had not occurred the storing of articles in the areaway would not have caused injury to any one and at the most merely furnished a condition by which the fire was made possible through the independent act of a third person, and the existence of the condition was not the proximate cause of the injury or death.
See Callaghan's Illinois Digest, same topic and section number.
Appeal from Circuit Court of Cook county; Hon. FRANK B. LEONARD, presiding.
Affirmed. Heard in first division, first district, this court at October term, 1941.
Irving G. Zazove, for appellants. Hinshaw Culbertson, for appellee;
Oswell G. Treadway, of counsel.
"Not to be published in full." Opinion filed June 1, 1942. Rehearing denied June 16, 1942.