Partial Negligence Does Not Prevent Court From Granting Summary Judgment In Labor Law 240 Case

In a continuing effort to clarify the boundaries of New York’s Labor Law Section 240, the Appellate Division, First Department recently held a plaintiff’s partial negligence, which may have contributed to Plaintiff’s accident, is not a bar to proving liability against Defendants in the context of a Labor Law 240 action.  Hernandez v. Bethel United Methodist Church of N.Y., et al 2008 WL 564991 (1st Dept. 2008).

In Hernandez, Plaintiff was injured when the ladder upon which he was standing in order to install insulation into a newly constructed wall began to wobble, ultimately causing Plaintiff to fall from the third rung down to the first rung.  Plaintiff acknowledged both during his deposition and in an Affidavit that he was leaning to his left at the time of the accident in an attempt to reach the wall upon which he was working.  He elected not to descend the ladder and reposition it a foot closer to the wall, which would have obviated the need for him to lean to the left as he worked.  As Plaintiff fell, the nail gun he was holding in his right hand to affix the insulation discharged, shooting him directly in the eye.  Plaintiff was not wearing eye protection at the time of the accident. 

Plaintiff filed suit against all relevant parties under Labor Law Sections 200 and 241(6).  At the conclusion of discovery, Plaintiff moved to amend his Complaint to include a cause of action under Labor Law Section 240(1), and to grant summary judgment in his favor under this newly pled cause of action.  The trial court granted Plaintiff’s application to amend the Complaint but denied that portion of Plaintiff’s motion seeking summary judgment.  After considering a motion to renew/reargue, the trial court reversed itself and granted summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff, without elaboration.  The Appellate Division, First Department, affirmed the trial court decision and granted summary judgment to Plaintiff under Labor Law Section 240(1).

In recent years, New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, has attempted to limit the scope of Labor Law 240(1).  While the purpose of the statute was to place responsibility for a worker’s safety squarely on the owner and contractor rather than on the worker, such responsibility, the Court held, should only be assessed when there is an elevated risk that falls into one of two distinct categories.  The two types of cases have been commonly referred to as “falling worker” cases and “falling object” cases.  Importantly, the Court attempted to set boundaries on this strict liability statute and held that when a plaintiff’s injuries come as a result of an ordinary construction site danger as opposed to an “extraordinary elevation risk,” the plaintiff cannot recover under the statute.  

More relevant to the Hernandez case, the Court determined that where the plaintiff’s actions constitute the “sole proximate cause” of his/her accident, the plaintiff may not at all recover under the strict liability theory of Labor Law 240(1). Blake v. Neighborhood Housing Services of New York, 1 N.Y.3d 280, 771 N.Y.S.2d 484 (N.Y. 2003).  There has been much litigation since the Blake decision concerning various acts of plaintiffs, and whether those acts may be determined, as a matter of law, to constitute a sole proximate cause of an accident or whether a respective plaintiffs’ accident might have occurred anyway, despite the plaintiff’s own acts or omissions.

In Hernandez, the First Department concluded that Plaintiff’s admitted act of leaning to the left during his installation of the insulation, as opposed to descending the ladder to reposition it closer to the wall, did not constitute the sole proximate cause of Plaintiff’s accident.  The Court explained that when the ladder was shaking and wobbling, causing the feet of the ladder to come off the ground,  “defendant failed to provide plaintiff with adequate safety devices or to properly secure the ladder.”  As such, the Court concluded that Plaintiff was not to be deemed the sole proximate cause of his accident. 

Interestingly, the Court went out of its way to state that a plaintiff who is otherwise protected under the Labor Law does not have to act “in a manner that is completely free from negligence.”  Instead, so long as a defendants’ statutory violation of the Labor Law can be determined to be at least partially responsible for the occurrence of a plaintiff’s accident, then the plaintiff’s acts or omissions simply cannot be deemed to constitute the sole proximate cause thereof.  In the context of the Hernandez action, according to the Court, because Plaintiff was able to demonstrate that Defendants’ failure to either provide adequate safety devices (i.e., eye protection) or properly secure the ladder was a violation of the Labor Law, both of which contributed to his injuries, Plaintiff was entitled to summary judgment on the issue of liability under Labor Law 240(1).

In Hernandez, the First Department further clarified the recent rulings concerning “sole proximate cause” under Labor Law Section 240(1).  This clarification is significant, because Section 240(1) is a strict liability statute and, therefore, the broader its terms, the more likely a plaintiff will be availed of its protection.  More recently, due in large part to the Blake decision, the defense bar has been attempting to argue that most plaintiffs’ accidents in the Labor Law 240(1) context were really a direct result of plaintiffs’ own acts and/or omissions.  Hernandez appears to strike back at the defense bar’s overwhelming and constant attack on strict liability under Labor Law 240(1).