## Facts

- Village Towers owned a New York City apartment building with a one-story attached garage; the garage roof contained a damaged chimney.
- Modern Sheet Metal, the decedent Joseph Robinson’s employer, was engaged to inspect and address the chimney damage and sent a crew supervised by Robinson.
- Access to the garage roof required crossing a landing bounded by a low wall and passing through a gap that was blocked by a makeshift gate designed to be detachable.
- Workers did not detach the gate; instead, they used it as a step to lever themselves up to the wall and onto the roof.
- While descending after completing the work, the gate gave way as Robinson used it, causing him to fall to the pavement below; he died three days later.
- A coworker testified that Robinson said the building superintendent, John Rendo, instructed Robinson not to remove the gate because Rendo used the garage area for his dog.
- Physical conditions in the garage area supported an inference that a dog was kept or exercised there.
- The plaintiff (Robinson’s widow, individually and as estate administratrix) sued for wrongful death and the decedent’s conscious pain and suffering.

## Issues

1. Whether testimony repeating Robinson’s account of the superintendent’s instruction about the gate was properly admitted under the residual hearsay exception despite a double-hearsay chain.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient under New York law to support a finding that Village Towers breached its duty of reasonable care to workers on the premises and proximately caused the fatal fall.
3. Whether the jury’s approximately $1.18 million damages award was excessive.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the judgment for the plaintiff.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the challenged testimony under the residual hearsay exception.
- The court held the evidence permitted the jury to find Village Towers negligent under New York premises-liability standards and to find proximate causation.
- The court upheld the damages award, concluding it did not warrant appellate reduction.

## Legal Principles

- Residual hearsay may be admitted when it concerns a material fact, has equivalent guarantees of trustworthiness, is more probative than reasonably available alternatives, and admission serves the interests of justice; admissibility is reviewed for abuse of discretion.
- In diversity cases, state substantive law governs negligence and premises-liability duties, while federal law governs evidentiary admissibility.
- Under New York law, a property owner must exercise reasonable care to maintain premises in a safe condition for workers lawfully on the property, including employees of independent contractors, and may be liable where it knows or should know of a hazardous condition and fails to remedy or warn.
- A worker’s arguably careless method of performing the work generally presents comparative-fault issues rather than a complete bar to recovery.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit affirmed a wrongful-death and survival judgment against a property owner, holding that the district court permissibly admitted corroborated, necessary hearsay under the residual exception, that the evidence supported findings of negligent maintenance and foreseeability under New York law, and that the jury’s damages award was not excessive.


Robinson v. Shapiro, 646 F.2d 734 (2d Cir. 1981)