Summary
This Appellate Division, First Department opinion affirms a lower court's grant of summary judgment on liability in a Labor Law § 240(1) action stemming from a construction site scaffold accident. The court held that the plaintiff established a prima facie case by showing the worker fell from an unsecured scaffold, and the defendants failed to raise a triable issue of fact or prove they fulfilled their nondelegable duty to provide adequate safety devices. Speculative defenses regarding medical events or intoxication were deemed insufficient to absolve the defendants' statutory liability. The order was affirmed without costs.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the defendants owed a nondelegable duty to provide adequate safety devices under Labor Law §240(1) and whether the plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment on liability.
- Whether comparative negligence or intoxication bars a Labor Law §240(1) claim.
Holdings
- The plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment on liability because the evidence establishes a prima facie case that the defendants breached a nondelegable duty and that the breach was a proximate cause of the injury.
- Comparative negligence and intoxication are not defenses to a Labor Law §240(1) claim.
Key quotations
“"it was not the sole proximate cause of the accident such as would absolve defendants"”
“"use amounts, at most, to comparative negligence[,] which is not a defense to a Labor Law § 240 (1) claim"”
Factual background
Vinicio A. Familia Sena was injured at a construction site owned by the defendants when a scaffold collapsed. No one witnessed the fall, but witnesses heard a sound and found the victim on the ground beside the overturned scaffold. The record shows the scaffold lacked adequate safety devices.
Procedural history
The Supreme Court, New York County entered an order granting plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on liability. The defendants appealed, and the Appellate Division affirmed the summary judgment.