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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before

publication in the New York Reports.

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No. 35 

Joseph Saint et al.,

 Appellants,

 v.

Syracuse Supply Company,

 Respondent.

Timothy M. Hudson, for appellants.

Brian P. Crosby, for respondent.

Defense Association of New York, Inc.; New York State

Trial Lawyers' Association, amici curiae.

RIVERA, J.:

Plaintiffs Joseph Saint and his wife Sheila Saint

challenge the dismissal of their claims arising from work-related

injuries Joseph Saint suffered while he was engaged in the

installation and removal of a billboard advertisement. We

conclude that because plaintiff's work required the attachment,

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at an elevated height, of custom-made wooden extensions that

changed the dimensions of the billboard frame, plaintiff was

engaged in alteration of the structure within the meaning of

Labor Law § 240 (1). Moreover, he properly asserted claims for

unprotected construction work under Labor Law §§ 240 (2) and 241

(6) based on the lack of a guardrail on the billboard platform. 

Therefore, we reverse the dismissal of his complaint. 

According to the undisputed facts, on the day of his

injury plaintiff Joseph Saint was part of a three-person

construction crew working to replace an advertisement on a

billboard located in Erie County. The billboard is elevated

approximately 59 feet from the ground, and composed of a twosided metal frame constructed in an inverted "V" shape, facing

east and west, and set on a metal tube embedded in the ground. 

Each side of the metal frame is approximately 14 by 48 feet in

size, and covered by a series of panels which are secured to the

frame by iron clips called "stringers." Each side accommodates

an advertisement made of vinyl material which is attached to the

panels with ratchet straps.

The billboard has six catwalks used by workers when

removing and installing advertisements. Two catwalks are located

on the exterior, one on each side of the metal frame. The other

four catwalks are located on the interior of the V frame, with a

lower and upper catwalk on each side, set ten feet apart

vertically. Workers access the upper and lower catwalks by a

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ladder elevated several feet from the ground and attached

externally to the metal tube. All the catwalks have safety

cables, but only the lower rear catwalks have a guardrail. 

Plaintiff and the other members of the construction

crew were working on the installation of a new advertisement

which necessitated the attachment of additions to the existing

frame. These additions are referred to as "extensions," and are

plywood cutouts shaped to accommodate the advertisement's artwork

in cases where text or a picture exceeds the boundaries of the

billboard's frame. For example, if the advertisement included a

person with a raised arm and the arm extends past the edge of the

top or the sides of the billboard, an extension shaped like an

arm would be crafted from plywood and the advertisement vinyl

would be glued to the extension to support the picture of the

arm. Once the artwork is attached an angle iron is bolted to the

back of the extension, and the extension is attached directly to

the billboard frame with nails, nuts and bolts.

Plaintiff was working with the other crew members on an

advertisement which required the attachment of four extensions. 

The extensions had been constructed in advance and transported to

the billboard structure the day plaintiff was injured. During

the course of their work, plaintiff and the construction crew

used a crane operated by the plaintiff to raise the extensions

along the outer side of the structure and onto the billboard's

lower outer catwalk. The billboard frame did not contain

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existing extensions that required removal, so once the new

advertisement's extensions were hoisted onto the catwalk the crew

proceeded directly to the removal of the old advertisement vinyl. 

The job required that the crew move the old advertisement from

one side of the frame to the other. Thus, the crew detached the

advertisement vinyl from the panels facing the west side, and

threw it down to the ground. They then began the process of

moving the vinyl from the east-side facing panels in order to

pull it up, around, and over the metal frame so that it fell onto

the panels facing towards the west, where the vinyl would then be

attached to the frame. The crew members were at different

locations on the upper and lower catwalks as they worked on

removing the old vinyl.

Had the job gone without disruption, after the crew

removed the old vinyl they would slide metal rods into pockets

around the perimeter of the new vinyl advertisement and then use

ratchet straps to secure the new advertisement to the panels. 

The crew would then bolt the extensions' angle irons to the

stringers, to hold the extensions in place on the billboard

frame. However, plaintiff fell and was injured while the crew

was attempting to move the vinyl from the east side panels over

the top of the frame and onto the west side panels.

Plaintiff was on the lower rear catwalk when he heard

the other crew members call for assistance because they were

having difficulty due to the day's wind conditions. Plaintiff

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went to the upper catwalk to assist them, and in order to get

around one of the crew members, plaintiff detached his lanyard

from the catwalk's safety cable. Before he was able to reattach

the lanyard, a strong wind gust caused the vinyl to strike

plaintiff in the chest, knocking him ten feet below onto the

lower rear catwalk, where he landed with his back on an I-beam,

and his shoulder on the metal catwalk. As a result, plaintiff

suffered a dislocated right shoulder and several herniated discs

in his back, precluding him from engaging in work on billboards. 

Plaintiff was subsequently terminated from his employment. 

Plaintiffs sued defendant Syracuse Supply Company, LLC,

owner of the property where the billboard is located, alleging

violations of Labor Law §§ 240(1), 240(2) and 241(6), and

derivative claims for plaintiff Sheila Saint's loss of support,

consortium, and expenses related to Joseph Saint's medical

bills.1 Defendant moved for summary judgment to dismiss

plaintiffs' amended complaint in its entirety, asserting that

plaintiff Joseph Saint was not engaged in a covered activity

under the Labor Law. Plaintiffs cross moved for partial summary

judgment on their Labor Law §§ 240(1) and 241(6) claims. Supreme

Court denied both motions, concluding that Labor Law §§ 240 and

241 applied to plaintiffs' claims and that an issue of fact

1

Plaintiffs also asserted claims under Labor Law § 200 and

common law negligence, but during the course of the proceedings

conceded these claims were not viable. Plaintiffs also filed an

amended complaint naming several additional defendants, but later

withdrew those claims. 

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existed as to whether plaintiff was the sole proximate cause of

his injuries for failure to reconnect his lanyard. Only

defendant appealed the order.

The Appellate Division reversed and granted summary

judgment for defendant and dismissed the amended complaint (Saint

v Syracuse Supply Co., 110 AD3d 1470 [4th Dept 2013]). Relying

in part on this Court's decisions in Joblon v Solow (91 NY2d 457

[1998]) and Munoz v DJZ Realty (5 NY3d 747 [2005]), the Appellate

Division concluded that plaintiff's work on the billboard did not

constitute altering the building or structure for purposes of

Labor Law § 240, and instead was "more akin to cosmetic

maintenance or decorative modification" (Saint, 110 AD3d at

1471). The court also concluded plaintiff was not engaged in

construction work within the meaning of § 241 (6) (id.). We

granted plaintiffs leave to appeal (22 NY3d 866 [2014]), and now

reverse.

Labor Law section 240 (1) provides, 

"All contractors and owners and their agents,

except owners of one and two-family dwellings

who contract for but do not direct or control

the work, in the erection, demolition,

repairing, altering, painting, cleaning or

pointing of a building or structure shall

furnish or erect, or cause to be furnished or

erected for the performance of such labor,

scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings,

hangers, blocks, pulleys, braces, irons,

ropes, and other devices which shall be so

constructed, placed and operated as to give

proper protection to a person so employed."

The "purpose of the statute is to protect workers by placing

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ultimate responsibility for safety practices on owners and

contractors instead of on workers themselves" (Panek v County of

Albany, 99 NY2d 452, 457 [2003], citing Martinez v City of New

York, 93 NY2d 322, 325-326 [1999], and Zimmer v Chemung County

Performing Arts, 65 NY2d 513, 520 [1985]). To that end, section

240(1) "is to be construed as liberally as may be for the

accomplishment of the purpose for which it was thus framed"

(Panek, 99 NY2d at 457, citing Gordon v Eastern Ry. Supply, Inc.,

82 NY2d 555, 559 [1993]). Therefore, the Court has made clear

that section 240 (1) imposes on owners or general contractors and

their agents a nondelegable duty, and absolute liability for

injuries proximately caused by the failure to provide appropriate

safety devices to workers who are subject to elevation-related

risks (see Rocovich v Consolidated Edison Co., 78 NY2d 509, 513

[1991]). 

Plaintiff claims that he comes within the coverage of

section 240 (1) because he physically altered the billboard by

installing extensions that changed the physical shape of the

structure. Defendant responds that plaintiff's injuries are

outside the scope of the Labor Law because at the time of

plaintiff's fall he was not engaged in the installation or

removal of extensions. In any event, according to defendant,

plaintiff's work was not an alteration because changing the vinyl

advertisement is a routine maintenance activity, and any alleged

change to the structure was not permanent in nature.

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In determining whether plaintiff Joseph Saint was

engaged in the type of work covered by the section 240(1), we

first consider defendant's contention that we should limit our

analysis of plaintiff's activity to the moment of his injury. 

The Court previously rejected this narrow construction of the

statute's application in Prats v Port Authority, because "it is

neither pragmatic nor consistent with the spirit of the statute

to isolate the moment of injury and ignore the general context of

the work" (100 NY2d 878, 882 [2003]). Thus, in Prats the Court

considered the totality of the plaintiff's actions, noting that

he was part of the team working on an enumerated activity and on

previous days he had done heavier alteration work for the same

project at the same work site where he was injured (id. at 881). 

Based on the context of that work and because the "intent of the

statute [is] to protect workers employed in the enumerated acts,

even while performing duties ancillary to those acts" (id. at

882), the Court concluded that the plaintiff was engaged in

alteration and thus covered under section 240 (1).

Defendant's interpretation would compartmentalize a

plaintiff's activity and exclude from the statute's coverage

preparatory work essential to the enumerated act. This

construction of the Labor Law is exactly what the Court sought to

avoid by Prats's contextualized analysis, and would strip workers

of the "exceptional protection that section 240 (1) provides"

(Rocovich, 78 NY2d at 514). We therefore reject an

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interpretation unsupported by the case law and which does no more

than undermine the statutory purpose of protecting workers from

dangers inherent to tasks involving elevation differentials (see

e.g. Robinson v City of New York, 22 AD3d 293, 293-94 [1st Dept

2005]; Fitzpatrick v State, 25 AD3d 755, 757 [2d Dept 2006];

Randall v Time Warner Cable, Inc., 81 AD3d 1149, 1151 [3d Dept

2011]).

Applying this standard, we conclude that plaintiff was

engaged in work that constitutes an alteration within the meaning

of the statute. In reaching this determination we apply the

definition the Court adopted in Joblon, that the term "altering"

in section 240 (1) "requires making a significant physical change

to the configuration or composition of the building or structure"

(Joblon, 91 NY2d at 465). This definition excludes "routine

maintenance" and "decorative modifications" (id.). Whether a

physical change is significant depends on its effect on the

physical structure. Thus, the Court held that the plaintiff in

Joblon who was injured when he fell off a ladder while in the

process of chiseling a hole through a concrete block wall so that

he could run electrical wires from one room to another to install

a wall clock was engaged in "altering" under section 240 (1). As

the Court held, extending the wiring and chiseling a hole through

the concrete constituted a significant change and entailed "more

than a simple, routine activity" (id. at 465-66). 

Here, plaintiff's job was to install a new

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advertisement. In order to do so he and the other members of the

construction crew had to attach extensions that changed the

dimensions of the billboard's frame and transformed the shape of

the billboard to accommodate the advertisement's artwork. 

Plaintiff was injured when in furtherance of this task he fell

while assisting the other crew members with the removal of the

old vinyl advertisement from the billboard's side panels. The

vinyl removal was a prerequisite to the attachment of the

extensions and therefore an integral part of the installation of

the extensions. We have little difficulty concluding that the

plaintiff's work entails a significant change to the billboard

structure because once the vinyl is removed, the billboard is

enlarged by the attachment of the extensions, work accomplished

by the use of the angle iron on the back of each extension, and

application of nuts, bolts and nails.

Moreover, plaintiff's facts differ from those of prior

cases where the Court found the injured worker's activity

constituted routine maintenance, and thus was outside the

coverage of the statute. Those cases involved simple tasks,

involving minimal work. In comparison, the removal of an old

advertisement and the installation of vinyl-covered plywood

extensions for the purpose of enlarging the shape of the

billboard to accommodate the new advertisement's artwork involves

the type of physical change significant enough to constitute a

section 240 (1) alteration, and to distinguish plaintiff's work

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from routine maintenance illustrated by the changing of a

lightbulb, as in the case of Smith v Shell Oil Co. (85 NY2d 1000,

1002 [1995]), the replacement of air conditioning components

damaged in the course of normal wear and tear, as in Esposito v

New York City Indus. Dev. Agency (1 NY3d 526, 528 [2003]),

household window cleaning, like that involved in Brown v

Christopher St. Owners Corp. (87 NY2d 938, 939 [1996]), or the

routine, annual inspection of an elevator in Nagel v D & R Realty

Corp. (99 NY2d 98, 99 [2002]). 

Nor, on the facts of this case, is the installation of

the new advertisement a "decorative modification" because the

work here entails far more than a mere "change to the outward

appearance of the billboard" (Munoz, 5 NY3d at 748). Instead,

the job requires a change to the billboard's size and an

adjustment of the frame to accommodate the unique shape of the

advertisement. Moreover, any change to the billboard frame

ensures that a future installation of a new advertisement would

require a subsequent alteration of the billboard's structure. 

That is to say, if the new advertisement did not require

extensions then the existing extensions would be removed and the

frame left as is, or if the new advertisement required different

extensions the old ones would be removed and the new ones

installed. In either case, the billboard frame would be

different from the one plaintiff would have altered.

Although plaintiff's job title is irrelevant to our

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analysis because we must focus on the actual work in which he was

engaged (Joblon, 91 NY2d at 465-66), we note that plaintiff's

activities bear out his designation as a construction crew

member, and further support our conclusion that he was employed

in the type of work covered by section 240 (1). Plaintiff

operated the crane used to hoist the extensions. The

installation of the new advertisement involved heavy lifting, and

the attachment of wood and vinyl to a metal frame several feet

above the ground.

We are unpersuaded by defendant's argument that Munoz v

DJZ Realty, where the Court concluded that an employee injured

while working on a billboard was not involved in "alteration" for

purposes of section 240(1), is dispositive of plaintiff's case. 

In Munoz, the plaintiff was applying pre-pasted sheets to a

billboard which the Court concluded merely "changed the outward

appearance of the billboard, but did not change the billboard's

structure" (Munoz, 5 NY3d at 748). Notably, the Munoz plaintiff

denied any assertion that the plastering constituted a change in

the shape of the billboard (see Munoz v DJZ Realty, Pls'Brf at

16, n 9).2 Unlike the plaintiff in Munoz, plaintiff and his

fellow crew members could not attach the new advertisement -- the

step that involved changing the outward appearance of the

2

The plaintiff in Munoz claimed instead that by placing an

advertisement on the face of the billboard, the plaintiff

"altered" the composition of the billboard structure in a manner

consistent with our holding in Joblon (Munoz v DJZ Realty, Pls'

Brf at 16). 

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billboard -- without first changing the size of the billboard to

accommodate the vinyl for the new, larger advertisement. Far

from the "cosmetic maintenance or decorative modification" that

doomed the Munoz plaintiff's claim, plaintiff's activity required

attachment of metal bolts, and the eventual attachment of the

extension to the billboard frame itself.

Similarly unpersuasive is defendant's argument that

plaintiff's work is not an alteration within the meaning of

section 240 (1) because the statute applies only to permanent

changes. There is no support in the text or the case law for

this limit on the statute's reach. No where does section 240 (1)

impose or even mention a requirement that an alteration be of a

permanent and fixed nature (see Labor Law § 241 [1]). Such a

reading is at odds with the Court's prior decisions. For

example, in Panek, the alteration was to a building scheduled for

demolition, a fact the Court said "does not change the nature of

the work project at the time of [the plaintiff's] accident"

(Panek, 99 NY2d at 458, citing Joblon, 91 NY2d at 464). In

Joblon, the wall clock could have been removed, the wiring pulled

out, and the chiseled hole refilled. Nevertheless, the Court

concluded that "the work performed by Joblon was a significant

physical change to the configuration or composition of the

building" (Joblon, 91 NY2d at 465). In Weininger v Hagedorn &

Co., the Court held that installing computer and telephone cables

was an alteration within the meaning of section 240 (1)(91 NY2d

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958 [1998], citing Joblon, 91 NY2d at 465). Yet, the computer

and telephone cables could have been removed and the ceiling

repaired. Similarly, in this case the fact that the

advertisement extensions stay up as long as the sign does, makes

the work no less an alteration within the meaning of section 240

(1). The change to the physical attributes of the structure is

what matters.

A requirement that the alteration be permanent would

also undermine the worker protection purpose of the statute (see

Rocovich, 78 NY2d at 513). Regardless of the duration of the

completed work, the worker's task remains the same, and the

permanency of the alteration in no way diminishes the risk

attendant to that task.

Given the nature of the plaintiff's work on the day of

his injury and that the attachment of extensions to the billboard

affects a significant change to the structure, plaintiff was

engaged in work that constitutes "altering" within the meaning of

Labor Law § 240 (1). Dismissal of his claim pursuant to this

section was therefore error.

We also find that it was error to dismiss plaintiff's

other Labor Law claims. Turning to his section 240(2) claim,

this provision requires, in relevant part, that "[s]caffolding or

staging more than twenty feet from the ground or floor . . .

shall have a safety rail of suitable material properly attached,

bolted, braced or otherwise secured . . .." It is undisputed

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that the billboard platform was 59 feet above the ground and that

there was no safety railing surrounding the upper rear catwalk

from which plaintiff fell. Therefore, plaintiff alleged a viable

claim under section 240 (2), and its dismissal was error.

With respect to plaintiff's section 241 (6) claim, we

agree with plaintiff that he was engaged in "construction work"

and thus within the ambit of the statute. Pursuant to section

241(6), "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 therein or lawfully frequenting such places." 

In determining what constitutes "construction" for purposes of

the statute we look to the Industrial Code which, as relevant

here, defines construction to include alteration of a structure

(12 NYCRR 23-1.4 [b] [13]). Since plaintiff was altering the

billboard by installing the extension at the time of his injury,

his claim comes within section 241 (6).

The defendant and Appellate Division's reliance on

Hatfield v Bridgedale, LLC (28 AD3d 608 [2d Dept 2006]), in

support of the opposite conclusion is misplaced. In Hatfield,

the Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's

section 241(6) claim holding that the section "do[es] not apply

to claims arising out of maintenance of a building or structure

outside of the construction context" (id. at 610). However,

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unlike the plaintiff in Hatfield, for the reasons we have already

discussed, plaintiff here was altering the billboard's dimensions

in order to apply the advertisement, and thus was not engaged in

maintenance work.

Accordingly, the Appellate Division order should be

reversed, with costs, and defendant's motion for summary judgment

denied.

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Order reversed, with costs, and defendant's motion for summary

judgment denied. Opinion by Judge Rivera. Chief Judge Lippman

and Judges Read, Pigott, Abdus-Salaam, Stein and Fahey concur.

Decided April 2, 2015

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