Plaintiff's Labor Law and Common Law Claim Dismissed by Appellate Division, Second Department
April 2006
April 14, 2006

In Richard Molyneaux v. City of New York, Van Tag Contracting Corp., the Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed the lower Court's Order dated October 22, 2004 granting O&B's Motions for Summary Judgment dismissing the Complaint against Van Tag Contracting Corp. and The City of New York, including all cross-claims asserted against them.

Plaintiff, while inspecting windows which had been installed at Bay Side High School in Queens, fell over ten (10) feet from a scaffold ladder, crashed through a basketball hoop and sustained serious injuries. Plaintiff was employed by the URS Corporation Group Consultants ("URS") which had been hired by the City of New York as a construction manager for this renovation project at the High School. URS then contracted with Van Tag Contracting Corp. ("Van Tag"), to install certain windows in the school's gymnasium. Van Tag subcontracted out portions of the window work but had responsibility for the scaffold which had to be set up and taken down daily. As a result of the accident, plaintiff commenced an action to recover for his personal injuries based on common-law negligence and violation of Labor Law §§ 200, 240(1) and 241(6).

The Appellate Division, Second Department in affirming the lower Court's Order held that the trial Court "properly concluded that the injured plaintiff's fall is beyond the reach of Labor Law §240(1)" and that where "the scaffold and its ladder indisputably neither collapsed nor malfunctioned," slipping due to an alleged unidentified substance, is "tantamount to a slipping without more scenario." The Court in its decision also addressed the scope of Labor Law § 240, clarifying the purpose of the statute. Primarily, that if the defendants were held liable under these circumstances it would "make them insurers of the workplace" and that the "statute was never intended to be a strict or absolute liability" statute in the sense that there would be liability without fault or that the "party being charged with responsibility be treated as an insurer after having furnished a safe workplace."

The Court also upheld the dismissal of plaintiff's Labor Law §200 cause of action as the "evidence indisputably showed that the unidentified substance had never been observed before the occurrence of the plaintiff's accident." Therefore, the Court found that the defendants could not have had notice of the cause of the accident, nor found responsible for creation of a dangerous condition. Lastly, the Court upheld dismissal of the plaintiff's Labor Law §241(6) cause of action as plaintiff failed to raise a triable of issue of fact with respect to a violation of the Industrial Code.

Eleftherios Stefas of Ohrenstein & Brown argued the appeal on behalf of Van Tag Contracting Corp.

(Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.)