## Facts

- Margaret Wolf, as administratrix of the estate of Phelix O’Brien (decedent), sued George Kaufmann and a co-owner, who owned the tenement building where O’Brien lived as a tenant.
- One evening, O’Brien was found unconscious and injured at the bottom of an interior stairway in the building.
- The stairway and hallway lighting was out when O’Brien was discovered.
- Plaintiff relied on a statutory requirement (Tenement House Law § 76) that owners keep required common-area lights burning every night from sunset to sunrise.
- The proof left uncertain whether the accident occurred after sunset (when the statutory lighting duty applied).
- Tenants reported hearing O’Brien in or near the common areas and then hearing a “thud,” but no witness saw O’Brien fall or could describe how the fall occurred.
- A hospital record containing a police officer’s report (based on hearsay obtained after the event) was received in evidence at trial.
- After a jury returned a verdict for defendants, the trial court set aside the verdict and granted a new trial; defendants appealed from that order.

## Issues

1. Whether a hospital record that includes a police officer’s hearsay account was admissible under the business-records statute (Civil Practice Act § 374-a).
2. Whether, assuming the stairway was unlit in violation of Tenement House Law § 76 and assuming the accident occurred after sunset, there was sufficient evidence that the lack of lighting proximately caused O’Brien’s fall, or whether causation was conjectural.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division held the hospital record containing the police officer’s hearsay report was improperly admitted under Civil Practice Act § 374-a.
- Although that evidentiary error could justify setting aside the verdict, the court ruled plaintiff’s proof failed on a more basic ground: even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, there was no proof connecting the unlit condition to the fall.
- Because no one saw O’Brien fall and the record did not explain how the fall happened, any finding that darkness caused the accident would rest on speculation.
- The court reversed the order granting a new trial and dismissed the complaint.

## Legal Principles

- Proof of a statutory violation (such as failing to keep tenement common-way lights on from sunset to sunrise) does not, by itself, establish liability; the plaintiff must still prove proximate cause.
- A negligence case cannot go to the jury where the causal link between the alleged breach and the injury is left to guesswork.
- Business-records statutes do not automatically make admissible embedded hearsay statements in a record when the underlying statement is not shown to be made under conditions that satisfy the statute’s reliability requirements.

## Conclusion

In *Wolf v. Kaufmann*, the Appellate Division dismissed a wrongful-death negligence claim arising from a tenant’s unexplained fall on a dark stairway, holding that even if the landlord violated the Tenement House Law lighting requirement, the record supplied no non-speculative basis to find that the lack of light caused the fall, and an erroneously admitted hospital record did not cure that failure of proof.


Wolf v. Kaufmann, 227 A.D. 281 (1929)