Source: https://www.nyaccidentlawyer.com/fall-through-holes-at-construction-sites.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 16:48:38+00:00

Document:
It is also well established law that a worker's fall through a hole (even a partial fall) in a flat surface to a level below at a construction site is within the protections of Labor Law § 240(1). Carpio v. Tishman Construction Corporation of New York, supra and O'Connor v. Lincoln Metrocenter Partners, L.P., 266 A.D.2d 60, 698 N.Y.S2d 632 (1st Dept., 1999) The deciding factor is whether a properly placed safety device could have prevented the worker's fall.
"Here, the risk of injury existed because of the 'difference between the elevation level of the required work' (the third floor), and a 'lower level' (the bottom of the piping shaft), and common sense alone tells us that this accident was gravity-related. Plaintiff's partial fall through a hole at a construction site can hardly be characterized as only tangentially related to the effects of gravity." Id, 240 A.D.2d at 235.
In Auriemma v. Biltmore Theatre, LLC, 82 A.D.3d 1, 917 N.Y.S.2d 130, (1st Dept., 2011), the First Department held that plaintiff was entitled to partial summary judgment because a fall into a four foot deep open pit at a construction site was an elevation-related hazard, and repeated the rule that "there is no bright-lien minimum height differential that determines whether an elevation hazard exists."
In Serino v. Miller Brewing Company, 167 A.D.2d 917, 562 N.Y.S.2d 283 (4th Dept., 1990), lv. to app. dism. 78 N.Y.2d 1008, the Fourth Department reversed the trial court so as to award summary judgment to the plaintiff under § 240(1), where one of his legs fell through an eighteen inch wide, uncovered hole that had been drilled in the floor by electricians. See, also, Siago v. Garbade Construction Co., 262 A.D.2d 945, 701 N.Y.S.2d 538 (4th Dept., 1999), affirming the grant of partial summary judgment to a plaintiff who fell eighteen inches, because "the determination whether Labor Law § 240(1) applies does not depend upon the distance a worker falls."
In Megna v. Tishman Construction Corporation of Manhattan, 306 A.D.2d 163, 762 N.Y.S.2d 63 (1st Dept., 2003), the grant of partial summary judgment to the plaintiff was affirmed where the plaintiff fell from a temporary two-step wooden staircase, because "the shortness of the distance of plaintiff's fall-at least two feet according to the plaintiff, no more than 16 inches according to defendants-is irrelevant."

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