In Ritto v. Goldberg (27 NY2d 887 [1970]), the landlord leased a room to the operators of commercial washing machines. A residential tenant was injured by a defective machine. Although the lease ceded control and occupancy to the commercial operators, the court concluded that: "there is proof. . . from which a jury might determine that the landlord, by a long course of conduct of his employees in reporting malfunctions of the machines to the repair service and the owner, so intervened in the operation of the business as to give rise to a reliance by residential tenants in the building on reports of malfunction being made by the landlord. Hence a liability might result if reports were not made and this played an effective part in the occurrence of the accident" (id. at 889).