Case ID: misc_83/html/0051-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Page, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Frederick Kitelson, Appellant, v. The Steel and Masonry Contracting Company, Respondent. Charles Youngquist, Appellant, v. The Steel and Masonry Contracting Company, Respondent.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term, First Department,
    December, 1913.)
    Negligence — defects in scaffold on which plaintiff stood — Labor Law, § i8.
    That a scaffold upon which plaintiff stood preparatory to commencing work broke by reason of defects in materials supplied by defendant for its construction tends to show that the mandatory duty of a master under section 18 of the Labor Law to furnish a safe scaffold for his employees was violated, and establishes a prima facie case in an action by plaintiff to recover for personal injuries received by being thrown off the scaffold when it broke, and a judgment of non-suit granted at the close of plaintiff’s ease will be reversed.
    
      Appeal in the above-entitled actions from, two judgments of the City Court of the city of New York, entered upon a non-suit at the close of the plaintiffs’ case.
    Francis X. McCollum (Raphael Link, of counsel), for appellants.
    Hitchings & Dow (Hector M. Hitchings, of counsel), for respondent.
   Page, J.

The actions were to recover damages for personal injuries. The plaintiffs were iron workers employed by the defendant and engaged in erecting a structure upon a pier in this city. A scaffold was constructed by the plaintiffs and their fellow workmen from materials supplied by the defendant. This scaffold was constructed by placing planks across two' wooden needle beams, to make a platform to stand upon. The needle beams were suspended from the trusses of the structure by means of ropes tied three or four feet from the end of each beam. The plaintiffs were standing’ upon the scaffold and a fellow workman was passing up tools to them, preparatory to commencing work, when one of the beams broke at a place near where there was a knot. The plaintiffs were thrown off and injured.

At the close of the plaintiffs’ case the complaints were dismissed upon the theory that the plaintiffs had failed to prove negligence of the defendant.

Section 18 of the Labor Law imposes a mandatory duty upon the master to furnish a safe scaffold to his servants, employed as were the plaintiffs. The fact that this scaffold broke by reason of defects in the materials furnished tends to prove that this duty was violated. A violation of that duty was negligence, or, at least, evidence of negligence, which was sufficient to establish a prima facie case. Caddy v. Interborough Rapid Transit Co., 195 N. Y. 415; Holsapple v. International Paper Co., 152 App. Div. 606, 609.

The judgments will therefore be reversed and a new trial ordered, with costs to the appellants to abide the event.

Lehman and Whitaker, JJ., concur.

Judgments reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellants to abide event.