Smelser

This is an action to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the defendant’s negligence. An order was made sustaining defendant’s demurrer to the amended complaint without leave to amend, and from the judgment entered thereon plaintiff appeals. The single question presented is whether the amended complaint states facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action.

The allegations of said complaint are to the following effect: Defendant owned a three-story frame apartment house in San Francisco which contained one apartment on each story. The building was designed, built, and occupied as a home or residence for three families living independently of each other, and was provided with a stationary wooden ladder, constructed in a court or light-well extending from a point near a window in the top apartment to the roof. The ladder, as the complaint alleges, “was accessible to the occupants or tenants of the third or top story and top apartment of said apartment house,” and “was the only means of access to said roof.” One Sophie Strauss was the lessee of the top floor and plaintiff occupied one of her rooms as her boarder or tenant. The complaint further…