Title: Alan Morton v. State of New York

State: new-york

Issuer: New York Appellate Court

Document:

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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 103  
Alan Morton et al.,
            Appellants, 
        v. 
State of New York, 
            Respondent.
Brian J. Isaac, for appellants.
Victor Paladino, for respondent.
READ, J.:
Claimant Alan Morton was injured on the morning of
April 3, 1997 while working for his employer, New York Water
Service Corporation (the water company), a private company that
furnishes water to portions of Nassau County.  On that date, he
was a member of a four-person work crew, including a foreman,
dispatched with a backhoe to fix a break reported in a company-
owned water main installed in 1928 beneath Carman Mill Road,
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No. 103
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Massapequa, New York, a part of the State of New York's highway
system (see Highway Law § 341 [29] [1]).
Upon arrival at the job site, the work crew notified
affected customers and shut off water service, excavated test
holes to pinpoint the leak's origin, and placed traffic cones to
alert motorists to the presence of the backhoe, which occupied a
portion of the northbound travel lane.  Using the backhoe and
shovels, the crew dug up blacktop in the roadbed and created a
hole or trench, exposing the 12-inch water main buried several
feet underground.  When claimant climbed down into this trench to
clean around the main and apply a repair clamp, a side wall caved
in, burying his right leg and foot. 
In June 1997, claimant, with his wife suing
derivatively, brought this action against the State.  He asserted
common-law negligence and violations of Labor Law §§ 200, 240 and
241 (6), and sought $5.5 million in damages.  In 2002, claimant
moved for partial summary judgment as to liability on his Labor
Law § 241 (6) and negligence claims.  He premised liability in
the former on violation of Industrial Code Rule 23 (12 NYCRR
subpart 23-4), which requires banked or sloped sides (12 NYCRR
23-4.2 [a]) or "sheeting, shoring and bracing" (12 NYCRR 23-4.4
[a]) of excavations that are five feet or more deep.  The State
opposed the motion and cross-moved for summary judgment
dismissing the complaint.
The State argued that it was not liable under Labor Law
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§ 241 (6) because the water company failed to obtain a work
permit from the New York State Department of Transportation
(DOT), as mandated by Highway Law § 52, prior to repairing the
water main, which was situated within the State highway right-of-
way.  Section 52 provides that
"[e]xcept in connection with the construction,
reconstruction, maintenance or improvement of a state
highway, no person, firm, corporation, municipality, or
state department or agency shall . . . lay or maintain
[within the State highway right-of-way] underground
wires or conduits or drainage, sewer or water pipes,
except in accordance with the terms and conditions of a
work permit issued by the commissioner of
transportation" (see also Vehicle and Traffic Law 
§ 1220-c ["[e]xcept in connection with the 
construction, reconstruction, maintenance, or 
improvement of a state highway, no person shall work on
a state highway without a work permit issued by the 
state commissioner of transportation"]; 17 NYCRR 126.2 
[a],[b] [a work permit must be secured "to temporarily 
obstruct or to install, construct, maintain or operate 
any facilities within the bounds of a State highway 
right-of-way," including "excavating . . . or work of a
like nature under, or over or along the highway"]).
By decision and order dated October 21, 2002, the Court
of Claims dismissed claimant's negligence claims because the
State lacked actual or constructive notice of any dangerous
condition and did not exercise supervision or control over the
worksite.  The court also denied claimant's motion and the
State's cross motion for summary judgment on the Labor Law 
§ 241 (6) claim.  The judge concluded that Highway Law § 52 did
not insulate the State from liability under Labor Law § 241 (6)
because this provision "imposed a nondelegable duty upon 'owners'
to provide reasonable and adequate protection and safety to
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persons employed in excavation work regardless of the absence of
control, supervision or direction of the work."  He did find,
however, that material questions of fact existed as to soil
composition and the excavation's depth, which implicated the
applicability of the Industrial Code sections relied upon by
claimant.  
After the ensuing nonjury trial, the Court of Claims on
April 9, 2003 found that the excavation was not protected by
sloped or banked sides or by sheeting, shoring or bracing, and
that it was more than five feet deep.  The judge decided that
claimant had therefore proven violations of sections of the
Industrial Code specific enough to support Labor Law § 241 (6)
liability; and that these violations proximately caused the
accident, and thus contravened the State's nondelegable duty to
claimant under Labor Law § 241 (6).  The judge also found that
the State had not proven claimant's comparative negligence by a
preponderance of the credible evidence.  Accordingly, on May 7,
2003, an interlocutory judgment determining the State to be
negligent and 100% liable for claimant's injuries was entered in
the Court of Claims.  The State appealed from both the order
denying its cross motion for summary judgment on the section 241
(6) claim, and the interlocutory judgment.
In December 2004, the Appellate Division dismissed the
State's appeal from the interlocutory judgment as academic;
reversed, on the law, the portion of the Court of Claims' order
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No. 103
1 Claimant first moved for leave to appeal in 2005.  We
dismissed that motion for lack of finality because his claim
under Labor Law § 240 remained pending in the lawsuit (5 NY3d 783
[2005]).  In May 2009, however, the parties stipulated to
discontinue the section 240 claim.  
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that denied the State's cross motion for summary judgment
dismissing the section 241 (6) claim; granted the State summary
judgment on and dismissed that claim; and vacated the
interlocutory judgment (13 AD3d 498 [2d Dept 2004]).  Citing
Abbatiello v Lancaster Studio Assoc. (3 NY3d 46, 51 [2004]), the
court reasoned that the
"State is not liable . . . under Labor Law § 241 (6)
because the claimant was not within the class of
persons afforded protection under the statute.  Since
[the water company] failed to obtain a highway work
permit in violation of state law . . . [the water
company] and the claimant trespassed on the State's
property in performing excavation and repairs on the
state highway . . . Since the claimant was performing
work without the State's permission or knowledge, he
was not a person 'employed' at a work site within the
meaning of the Labor Law, which defines such an
individual as one 'permitted or suffered to work'
(Labor Law § 2 [7])" (13 AD3d at 500 [citations
omitted]).
We granted claimant permission to appeal,1 and now affirm.       
Labor Law § 241 (6) provides that
"[a]ll contractors and owners and their agents . . .,
when constructing or demolishing buildings or doing any
excavating in connection therewith, shall comply with
the following requirements:
. . .
"All areas in which construction, excavation or
demolition work is being performed shall be so
constructed, shored, equipped, guarded, arranged,
operated and conducted as to provide reasonable and
adequate protection and safety to the persons employed
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No. 103
2As we noted in Brothers v New York State Elec. & Gas Corp.
(11 NY3d 251, 256 n 1 [2008]), "[i]n tort law, the term
'nondelegable duty,' although widely used, is somewhat
misleading.  The question is not so much whether a defendant can
or has delegated to another party a duty owed by that defendant
to a particular plaintiff, but whether the defendant owes the
plaintiff a duty in the first place."
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therein or lawfully frequenting such places.  The [New
York State Commissioner of Labor] may make rules to
carry into effect the provisions of this subdivision,
and the owners and contractors and their agents for
such work . . . shall comply therewith."
Thus, Labor Law § 241 (6) imposes a nondelegable duty2 on owners
and contractors to comply with the Commissioner of Labor's
regulations (see Ross v Curtis-Palmer Hydro-Elec. Co., 81 NY2d
494, 502 [1993]).  And "to the extent that [a] plaintiff . . .
assert[s] a viable claim under Labor Law § 241 (6), he need not
show that defendants exercised supervision or control over his
worksite in order to establish his right of recovery" (id.).  
But we have consistently held that ownership of the
premises where the accident occurred -- standing alone -- is not
enough to impose liability under Labor Law § 241 (6) where the
property owner did not contract for the work resulting in the
plaintiff's injuries; that is, ownership is a necessary
condition, but not a sufficient one.  Rather, we have insisted on
"some nexus between the owner and the worker, whether by a lease
agreement or grant of an easement, or other property interest"
(Abbatiello, 3 NY3d at 51; see also Scaparo v Village of Ilion,
13 NY3d 864, 866 [2009] ["In cases imposing liability on a
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No. 103
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property owner who did not contract for the work performed on the
property, this Court has required 'some nexus between the owner
and the worker, whether by a lease agreement or grant of an
easement, or other property interest'"], quoting Abbatiello, 3
NY3d at 51).
We found no nexus in Abbatiello where the plaintiff, a
cable television repair man, was injured at a building owned by
the defendant while responding to the complaint of a tenant who
was a cable television subscriber.  The plaintiff's employer had
sent the plaintiff to the defendant's building to respond to the
complaint.  We emphasized that the "injured plaintiff was on the
owner's premises not by reason of any action of the owner but by
reason of provisions of the Public Service Law," which precludes
landlords from interfering with the installation of cable
television facilities on their property (Abbatiello, 3 NY3d at
51).  Moreover, the owner was "powerless to determine which cable
company [was] entitled to operate, repair or maintain the cable
facilities on its property, since [pursuant to Public Service Law
§ 219] such decision lies with the municipality -- the
franchisor" (id. at 52).  As we elaborated,
"but for Public Service Law § 228, plaintiff would be a
trespasser upon [the defendant's] property and [the
defendant] would neither owe a duty to plaintiff nor
incur liability.  Any permission to work on the
premises was granted upon compulsion and no
relationship existed between [the defendant] and [the
plaintiff's employer] or the plaintiff" (id.).
We contrasted Abbatiello with three earlier cases in which there
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No. 103
3Like Labor Law § 241 (6), Labor Law § 240 (1) imposes a
nondelegable duty on owners.
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was a nexus between the owner and the injured worker: Celestine v
City of New York (86 AD2d 592, 593 [2d Dept 1982], affd 59 NY2d
938 [1983] [in action under Labor Law § 241 (6), owner granted an
easement to entity contracting for work leading to plaintiff's
accident]); Gordon v Eastern Ry. Supply (82 NY2d 555, 559 [1993]
[in action under Labor Law § 240 (1),3 owner leased property to
contractor who performed work leading to plaintiff's accident]);
and Coleman v City of New York (91 NY2d 821, 823 [1997] [in
action under Labor Law § 240 (1), owner leased property to
injured employee's employer]).
We next applied the nexus test in Sanatass v
Consolidated Inv. Co., Inc. (10 NY3d 333, 341 [2008]), where a
mechanic was injured while installing an air conditioning unit
for a tenant of a commercial building owned by the defendant
landlord.  The tenant had agreed by lease not to make any changes
to the premises without the owner's written consent, but
nevertheless hired the plaintiff's employer without notifying the
landlord.  There, a nexus arose from the owner's lease of the
premises to the tenant who, in turn, hired the plaintiff's firm
to install the air conditioning unit.  Further, the tenant's
breach of the lease agreement requiring the owner's written
consent for alterations "did not sever the nexus" (id. at 341-
342).  We distinguished Abbatiello, pointing out that although
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the owner in that case "was unaware of and did not consent to the
plaintiff's presence on the property, these facts alone were not
determinative of our affirmance of the dismissal of the
complaint" -- i.e., "Abbatiello did not announce a new notice
requirement for section 240 (1) cases" (id. at 341).  Rather, the
difference between Abbatiello and Sanatass was the absence of a
nexus in the former and its presence in the latter (id.).  And we
again explained that in "Celestine and its progeny . . . a nexus
existed between the out-of-possession owner and the plaintiff, be
it by lease, easement or some other property interest" (id.). 
Finally, we observed that "[u]nlike the cable technician in
Abbatiello, the plaintiff in [Sanatass] . . . cannot conceivably
be viewed as a 'trespasser'" (id. at 342).
Scaparo is our most recent decision discussing the
nexus prerequisite.  There, the injured plaintiffs, employees of
the Village of Frankfort, were connecting a sewer lateral from a
newly constructed cemetery chapel owned by a church to the sewer
main at a street intersection in the Village (see 64 AD3d 1209,
1211 [4th Dept 2009]).  The Herkimer County Industrial
Development Agency (HCIDA) owned the property where the sewer
lateral was installed; that property was within the Village's
utility right-of-way (see id.).  Affirming the Appellate
Division, we determined that HCIDA was not liable under Labor Law
§ 241 (6) because there was no nexus between HCIDA and the
injured plaintiffs.  As we explained,
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No. 103
4Claimant articulates the nexus that he asserts in this case
as follows: "At bar, the nexus between claimant's work and the
State's ownership is clear -- the emergency situation blocked
traffic and the road was buckling, and the State had a non-
delegable duty to maintain the road; [the water company's] work
was designed to assist the State."  In fact, the water company
did not repair the leak to help the State maintain its roadway;
its repairs simply eliminated or mitigated damages otherwise
owing the State for the harm to State-owned property caused by
the leak, which the water company was obligated to fix to
maintain service to its customers.  
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"although the accident occurred on HCIDA's property,
HCIDA did not contract with the Village of Frankfort to
have the sewer lateral installed, it had no choice but
to allow the Village to enter its property pursuant to
a right-of-way, and it did not grant the Village an
easement or other property interest creating the right-
of-way" (Scaparo, 13 NY3d at 866).
Here, there was no lease agreement or grant of an
easement or other property interest creating a nexus between
claimant and the State.  Claimant was performing excavation work
on the State's premises "not by reason of any action of the
[State] but by reason" of the water company's obligation to
repair a break in its water line (Abbatiello, 3 NY3d at 51).  And
although claimant protests that the water company's repairs took
care of the damage caused to the State-owned roadway by the leak
and removed a traffic hazard in an emergency situation,4 we long
ago concluded that whether a property owner benefits in any sense
from the injury-related work is "legally irrelevant" to
determining whether the Labor Law imposes a nondelegable duty
(see Gordon, 82 NY2d at 560).  
Claimant also urges that he "did not simply trespass on
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No. 103
5 For some unexplained reason, the water company purchased
protective liability insurance naming DOT as an additional
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another's property," and tags the statutory requirement for a
highway work permit as "[a] mere formality."  But we have
recognized that the "terms and conditions [of these permits] are
not meaningless or optional; the permitee agrees to abide by them
in order to obtain DOT's permission to work in the highway right-
of-way" (Brothers, 11 NY3d at 260).  The permit requirement
allows DOT to inspect the worksite to insure the safety of
motorists, pedestrians and others in the work zone, and to
safeguard the roadway's integrity.  And as we indicated in
Brothers, DOT may revoke a highway work permit at any time if
necessary to protect the public (see id. at 259; see also 17
NYCRR 129.3 [b] [the DOT Commissioner "reserves the right to
revoke or annul the (state highway) permit at any time and at his
discretion without a hearing or the necessity of showing cause"];
17 NYCRR 131.21 [c] [DOT "reserves the right to modify and to
revoke or annul" a highway work permit issued for utility
facilities occupying a State right-of-way "upon a determination
within its sole discretion, and without a hearing, that continued
operation under the permit will cause or continue a threat to the
public or to the operation of the highway"]).  In addition, the
permit requirement allows the State to verify that the permittee
has liability insurance in place to protect the State's interests
(see 17 NYCRR 129.3 [f]; 17 NYCRR part 127).5  
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No. 103
insured, which was in force at the time of claimant's accident,
even though there was no job-specific or annual work permit
requiring it.  Although the State impleaded the insurance carrier
after learning about the policy during discovery, the Court of
Claims dismissed the third-party complaint for failure to provide
the insurer with timely notice of the claim.
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Finally, claimant suggests that a highway work permit
may not have been necessary here because of the "emergency
situation."  DOT's regulations, however, make clear that the
water company was required to have in hand either a job-specific
or an annual permit before undertaking excavation of the roadway,
notwithstanding any exigency (see 17 NYCRR 126.2; 129.1).  There
are simply different requirements for notifying DOT, depending on
whether or not an emergency exists (compare 17 NYCRR 129.3 [a]
[1] with 17 NYCRR 129.3 [a] [2]; see also 17 NYCRR 126.6
[specifying instructions to obtain highway work permits that
apply to, among other things, "emergency repairs and public
utilities"]).  Additionally, even if it were true that the water
company was entitled to enter the State highway right-of-way
without a work permit in order to make emergency repairs, the
State still would not be liable.  In that circumstance, "[a]ny
permission to work on the premises [would have been] granted upon
compulsion and no relationship [would have] existed between [the
State] and [the water company] or [claimant]" (Abbatiello, 3 NY3d
at 52).
The outcome of this case would be different -- as the
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State concedes -- if the water company had secured a highway work
permit before excavating in the State highway right-of-way.  In
that event, the work permit would have created the nexus between
the claimant, the injured worker, and the State, the property
owner.  Without the permit, though, claimant was a trespasser to
whom the State owed no duty under Labor Law § 241 (6).
Although acknowledging that we have always "required as
a condition of owner liability [under Labor Law § 241 (6)] no
more than some connection, or 'nexus,' between the owner and the
plaintiff," the dissent never suggests how this minimal standard
was met -- i.e., what the nexus might have been -- in this case
(dissenting op at 4; cf. n 4, supra).  All we are told is that
"[t]here is . . . no issue . . . as to whether" this unspecified
nexus "was attenuated by out-of-possession status" as was
purportedly the question in Sanatass (dissenting op at 6).  Of
course, in Sanatass there was a clear nexus -- a lease -- and the
issue, as we articulated it, was not whether this nexus was
"attenuated by [the landlord's] out-of-possession status," but
whether it had been "sever[ed]" by the tenant's breach of a
clause in the lease prohibiting the hiring of a contractor to
make alterations in the premises without the landlord's written
prior consent (see Sanatass, 10 NY3d at 341-342).  We decided, of
course, that this clause did not sever the nexus created by the
lease.
Under the dissent's apparent analysis of our prior
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cases, a property owner who did not contract for the injury-
inducing work is liable under Labor Law § 241 (6) unless the
plaintiff's employer's entry onto the premises results from
compulsion -- i.e., permission unrelated to a lease, easement or
some other property interest granted by the owner.  This is
certainly contrary to the way in which we have consistently
explained and reconciled our precedents, and effectively
eliminates the nexus requirement.  More to the point, there is no
reason to believe that this is what the Legislature intended. 
Indeed, such a liability scheme would do away with any motive or
means for a property owner "to assure that only financially
responsible and safety-conscious subcontractors are engaged so
that a high standard of care might be maintained throughout the
entire construction site"; and to "furnish[] an additional
incentive to both insurer and insured to maintain safety
standards necessary to avoid increased exposure to liability"
(Allen v Cloutier Constr. Corp., 44 NY2d 290, 301 [1978]).
Accordingly, the judgment appealed from and the order
of the Appellate Division brought up for review should be
affirmed, with costs.
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Morton v State of New York
No. 103
LIPPMAN, Chief Judge(dissenting) :
Claimant Alan Morton was injured when, after being
"dispatched" by his water company employer to the site of a
broken water main located beneath a state owned roadway, the
unshored sides of the area excavated to facilitate the repair
fell upon him.  He sought to recover for his injuries pursuant to
Labor Law § 241 (6), and in the ensuing litigation established
that his injuries were attributable to a violation of that
statute's requirement that "[a]ll areas in which construction,
excavation or demolition work is being performed shall be so
constructed, shored, equipped, guarded, arranged, operated and
conducted as to provide reasonable and adequate protection and
safety to the persons employed therein."  He is now told,
however, that he may not recover because the party against whom
recovery is sought -- and, indeed, the only party potentially
answerable in damages under the present circumstances -- the
State, had not given permission for the repair.  It is not
disputed that the State would otherwise be statutorily liable by
reason of its ownership of the accident site.   
The question, then, is whether the failure of
claimant's employer to obtain permission should operate to
deprive claimant of the remedy the Legislature has provided in
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enacting Labor Law § 241 "to achieve the purpose of protecting
workers by placing 'ultimate responsibility for safety practices
at building construction jobs where such responsibility actually
belongs, on the owner and general contractor' (1969 NY Legis Ann,
at 407), instead of on workers, who 'are scarcely in a position
to protect themselves from accident' (Koenig v Patrick Constr.
Co., 298 NY 313, 318)" (Zimmer v Chemung County Performing Arts,
65 NY2d 513, 520 [1985]).  Because the strict liability statute
at issue nowhere conditions an owner's liability upon consent to
the injury producing work, and because we have expressly held
that an owner may not avoid responsibility under the strict
liability provisions of the Labor Law by interpolating such a
requirement as a condition of recovery, I respectfully dissent.
The strict liability provisions of the Labor Law,
sections 240 and 241, do not contain any provision conditioning
the liability of an owner or any other statutorily responsible
party upon that party's consent to, permission for, control, or
even knowledge, of the injury producing activity.  The
precautionary obligations imposed under those statutes are
absolute and non-delegable and, accordingly, their discharge
cannot depend upon whether in a particular case the owner,
contractor or agent had notice of or allowed the work (see Gordon
v Eastern Ry. Supply, 82 NY2d 555, 560 [1993]; Coleman v City of
New York, 91 NY2d 821 [1997]); the imperative behind these
enactments is that someone, other than the worker, must bear
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ultimate responsibility for worksite safety.  The onus is placed
on owners, contractors and their agents not because they are
invariably situated and apprised to assure the safety of the
workplace, but because, generally, they are the parties best
positioned and equipped to meet that essential objective (Allen v
Cloutier Constr. Corp., 44 NY2d 290, 301 [1978]).
Abbatiello v Lancaster Studio Assoc. (3 NY3d 46 [2004])
should not be read to alter the Labor Law's essential allocation
of responsibility.   There, liability was sought against a
building owner for injuries sustained by a technician in the
course of a cable television service call for which access to the
owner's building was compelled by statute.  In deciding that the
owner could not in those particular circumstances be held
strictly accountable under the Labor Law, the Court observed, 
"Lancaster [the owner] cannot be charged with
the duty of providing the safe working
conditions contemplated by Labor Law § 240
(1) for cable television repair people of
whom it is wholly unaware. Supreme Court
correctly noted that, but for Public Service
Law § 228, plaintiff would be a trespasser
upon Lancaster's property and Lancaster would
neither owe a duty to plaintiff nor incur
liability. Any permission to work on the
premises was granted upon compulsion and no
relationship existed between Lancaster and
Paragon or the plaintiff." 
(id. at 52).  After Abbatiello, there was some belief that an
owner's knowledge of and permission for the work in the course of
which the sued upon injuries were sustained were generally
necessary conditions of owner liability under the Labor Law's
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strict liability statutes (see e.g. Sanatass v Consolidated Inv.
Co., Inc., 38 AD3d 332 [2007], revd  10 NY3d 333 [2008]); Morales
v D & A Food Serv., 41 AD3d 352 [2007], revd 10 NY3d 911 [2008]),
but we addressed this misconception in Sanatass, where we
reiterated,
"our precedents make clear that so long as a
violation of the statute proximately results
in injury, the owner's lack of notice or
control over the work is not conclusive-this
is precisely what is meant by absolute or
strict liability in this context. We have
made perfectly plain that even the lack of
'any ability' on the owner's part to ensure
compliance with the statute is legally
irrelevant (see Coleman, 91 NY2d at 823)"
(10 NY3d at 340 [internal citation omitted]).  We at the same
time clarified that Abbatiello, properly understood in light of
the governing statutes, their often acknowledged protective
purposes and our consistent precedents, required as a condition
of owner liability no more than some connection, or "nexus," 
between the owner and the plaintiff (id. At 341).  
While we had noted in Abbatiello that the required
nexus might be supplied by the circumstance that an out-of-
possession owner had granted a property interest in the premises
to the party who had afforded the consequently injured worker
access, our decision in Abbatiello turned not upon the absence of
a connective property interest, or even upon the absence of
permission, but upon the legal incapacity of the owner to
withhold access for the injury producing work (3 NY3d at 52). 
Similarly, in the subsequently decided case of Scaparo v Village
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of Ilion (13 NY3d 864 [2009]), we upheld the dismissal of a Labor
Law § 241 (6) claim upon the ground that the owner "had no choice
but to allow the Village [the employer of the injured plaintiffs]
to enter its property pursuant to a right-of-way" (id. at 866).
Our decision in Sanatass, by contrast, addressed the
situation only hypothetically adverted to in Abbatiello --
whether an out-of-possession owner "by a lease agreement or grant
of an easement, or other property interest” (Abbatiello, 3 NY3d
at 51) retained a sufficient nexus with the property and the
plaintiff's work upon it to qualify as an "owner" under the Labor
Law's strict liability statutes.  We held that the out-of-
possession owner there did retain the requisite connection, since
it had leased the premises to the party that had afforded access
to the workers subsequently injured upon the premises in the
course of performing alterations.  In so holding, we acknowledged
that the lease in fact contained a provision, allegedly violated
by the lessee, requiring the owner's written permission for the
work.  Clearly differentiating between nexus and permission, we
rejected the contention that violation of the lease provision
requiring permission for the work could vitiate the nexus
necessary to sustain the strict liability claim against the owner
(Sanatass, 10 NY3d at 341-342).  We recognized that the injured
worker's right of recovery could not, consistent with the Labor
Law's dominant protective purpose, be made to depend upon legal
claims the owner might have over against third parties (id.). 
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The majority now, ignoring the crucial distinction made
in Sanatass, equates nexus with permission and, in so doing,
affords the nexus requirement a dimension incompatible with the
strict liability provisions at issue and their remedial purpose.  
There is, of course, no issue in this case as to
whether defendant's nexus to the work site and claimant was
attenuated by out-of-possession status; defendant owned and was
in possession of the roadway where the accident took place.  The
only remaining nexus issue, then, if Abbatiello and its progeny
are to be followed, is whether defendant's ownership interest in
the work site was rendered nugatory by some countervailing legal
compulsion effectively divesting defendant of its right to
exclude claimant's employer from its premises.  Obviously, there
was no such compulsion.  It is, to the contrary, defendant
State's strenuous contention that, pursuant to Highway Law § 52,
access for the work performed by claimant's employer was legally
contingent upon defendant's issuance of a permit.  This provision
in the owner's favor, like the lease provision in Sanatass, may
well have been violated by the worker's unpermitted access of the
property, but there is no reason why this defendant any more than
the defendant in Sanatass should therefore avoid the
responsibilities of ownership under the Labor Law.     
Labeling claimant a "trespasser" -- one whose presence
on the premises was not permitted -- is only another way of
importing into the Labor Law a coverage condition of owner
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No. 103
6Indeed, it appears from the trial testimony that a permit
would have routinely issued.
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permission at variance with the statutory scheme.  What is
relevant is, rather, whether the worker is "employed" to do work
otherwise falling within the statutory coverage criteria (see
Labor Law § 241 [6]).  There is no question that claimant was
legitimately employed to do the very work he was doing at the
time of his injury, or that he was present upon defendant's
roadway at the direction of his employer, or that defendant,
although empowered to deny access, did not.  That defendant may
have been unable to exercise its power to do so by reason of the
water company's failure to seek a permit for the work, cannot be
determinative of claimant's right to the Labor Law's protection,
particularly where there is no reason to suppose that defendant
would have denied access for the emergently necessary repairs.6 
Under the holding now embraced by the majority no worker will
know as he or she sets off to a work site at the direction of his
or her employer whether he or she will be covered under the Labor
Law's umbrella; there will always be the possibility of a
subsequent claim by the owner that permission for the work was
not given -- that the worker was in the eyes of the owner and
pursuant to some agreement or enactment about which the employee
cannot be expected to have been aware, a "trespasser."
The Court does today precisely what it said would be
impermissible in Sanatass: it has permitted an owner to "engraft"
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No. 103
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onto the Labor Law a limitation upon the Law's coverage at odds
with the statutory scheme (see Sanatass, 10 NY3d at 342).  True,
here it is the State relying upon an enactment in its favor, and
not a private party relying upon a contract, that seeks to
benefit from the proposed limitation, but there is no evidence
that the Legislature, in enacting the statute upon which the
defendant bases its claim of non-coverage, intended to truncate
the protections of the Labor Law.  And, in the absence of such
evidence, the State's dependence upon Highway Law § 52, an
apparently modestly intended provision, should be as unavailing
as the owner's reliance upon the lease provision in Sanatass.  If
the protections of the Labor Law are to be abridged that is a
matter to be frankly undertaken by the Legislature; it should not
be accomplished, as it is now, by judicial invention.
Pervading the majority opinion is the very basic
misunderstanding, nowhere encouraged in the governing statute or
our case law, that in every strict liability Labor Law action
"nexus" must be separately demonstrated as an element of the
claim.  This has never been true.  Ordinarily, all that is
necessary to demonstrate the liability of an "owner" under the
subject provisions is a showing of a statutory violation and
causation.  Ownership itself ordinarily suffices to establish any
connection with the property and the work upon it necessary to
sustain liability.  An additional showing of connection has only
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No. 103
7While in our affirming memorandum in Scaparo we without
explanation glossed "out-of-possession" as without contractual
relationship (13 NY3d at 866), it does not appear that any
departure from Abbatiello was intended and the substituted
language now read as broadening the separate nexus requirement
was, in any event, dicta.
- 9 -
been deemed necessary where an owner is out-of-possession7 -- but
we have never actually found a lack of nexus on that ground -- or
where there is some relevant legal impediment to the owner's
assertion of his ownership prerogatives, as in Abbatiello and
Scaparo, where access to the premises is statutorily or otherwise
legally compelled notwithstanding any right of exclusion the
owner might otherwise have.  There has never, until today, been a
case in which an in-possession fee owner in no way legally
disabled from the assertion of its ownership rights has been held
to have an insufficient connection to those working upon the
property to support statutory liability under the Labor Law. 
This is a significant and unwarranted departure that the
Legislature may well wish to curtail.
Strict liability statutes invariably produce some harsh
outcomes, but that is not a reason to deny them effect.  The
Legislature has determined to impose extensive duties upon owners
to assure worker safety and provide reliable recourse in the
event of construction related injury.  Plainly, defendant was not
at fault in connection with claimant's harm; it was held
accountable simply by reason of its ownership of the premises
where the accident occurred.  Owners, however, are not helpless
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No. 103
8Defendant, presumably not out of any charitable impulse on
the part of the water company was, in fact, named as additional
insured in the water company's liability policy.  While the
State, and now the majority, suggest that defendant's failure to
realize the benefit of that coverage in this case is attributable
to the water company's noncompliance with the State permitting
law, the suggestion is belied by express findings in the
underlying insurance litigation that the State failed to make
reasonable efforts to ascertain the existence of such coverage
and unreasonably delayed in filing a claim, even after it had
learned of the coverage. 
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to protect themselves from the exposure created by the Labor Law. 
They can purchase insurance to guard against the risk of
statutory liability, and can require contractors to do the same
and name them as additional insureds.8  They can, in addition,
seek through third-party litigation to place financial
responsibility for liability incurred on purely statutory grounds
with the party actually at fault.  What they should not be
permitted to do, however, is to unilaterally tinker with the
Labor Law's basic protective ambit and thereby leave an injured
worker, otherwise deserving of the Law's protection, without
recourse.  Accordingly, I dissent from the Court's determination
to afford such permission and would reverse and rule in
claimant's favor.  
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No. 103
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*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Judgment appealed from and order of the Appellate Division
brought up for review affirmed, with costs.  Opinion by Judge
Read.  Judges Graffeo, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur.  Chief
Judge Lippman dissents and votes to reverse in an opinion in
which Judge Ciparick concurs.
Decided June 8, 2010