The action proceeded in form as one to recover damages for physical injuries sustained by the plainliff in consequence of the defendant’s agent’s willful misrepresentation and deceit, and resulted in a judgment for the plaintiff in a substantial amount.
The plaintiff was a monthly tenant of certain rooms in the defendant’s premises. After the recommencement of the term, and before its expiration, on the occasion of the defendant’s agent’s call for the rent, the plaintiff directed the agent’s attention to the decrepit and threatening condition of the ceiling in one of the rooms, expressing her apprehension of injury therefrom and her intention to vacate the rooms. She was assured by the agent that he had caused the ceiling to be examined and tested and that it had been found to be secure. Later, during the same term, the ceiling fell upon the plaintiff, who, relying upon these assurances, had remained in the occupancy of the rooms, causing physical injuries to her. Upon the trial it appeared from sufficient proof that the ceiling had not been inspected or tested, and the agent’s representations that it had were knowingly untrue as a matter of fact, and so the court below found.
An action for damages for fraud and deceit does not necessarily rest in any actual or contemplated contractual relation
True, the. plaintiff’s injuries were not the immediate result of the defendant’s agent’s deceit but of an intervening cause, the fall of the ceiling. They were, however, the indirect result of the deceit, a natural and probable effect of the agent’s wrongful conduct, one against which the fraudulent assurances were made and from which the plaintiff expected to escape in her reliance upon such assurances. Her dam
From the testimony of the defendant’s witness, Harris, it appears abundantly that the latter was the agent and alter ego' of the defendant in respect to the premises wherein the plaintiff’s rooms were located; and, the agent’s representations having been made within the scope of his duties, the defendant’s answerability therefor is not debatable. Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d ed.), 1158; Sanford v. Handy, 23 Wend. 263; Weed v. Panama R. Co., 17 N. Y. 362; Smith v. Tracy, 36 id. 79, 83; Nowack v. Metropolitan St. R. Co., 166 id. 433.
Judgment should be affirmed, with costs.
Gildersleeve, J., concurs.