Case Name: Anthony Farrugia, Respondent, v. 1440 Broadway Associates et al., Respondents-Appellants, and Harbour Mechanical Corp., Defendant-Appellant-Respondent, et al., Defendants. (And a Third-Party Action.)
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 2018-01-18
Citations: 157 A.D.3d 565
Docket Number: 
Parties: Anthony Farrugia, Respondent, v 1440 Broadway Associates et al., Respondents-Appellants, and Harbour Mechanical Corp., Defendant-Appellant-Respondent, et al., Defendants. (And a Third-Party Action.)
Judges: Concur—Manzanet-Daniels, J.P., Gische and Kern, JJ.
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 157
Pages: 565–573

Head Matter:
Anthony Farrugia, Respondent, v 1440 Broadway Associates et al., Respondents-Appellants, and Harbour Mechanical Corp., Defendant-Appellant-Respondent, et al., Defendants. (And a Third-Party Action.)
[69 NYS3d 614]

Opinion:
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Ellen M. Coin, J.), entered September 15, 2016, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, denied defendant Harbour Mechanical Corp.'s motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint and cross claims of defendants 1440 Broadway Associates, 1440 Broadway Owner, LLC and 1440 Broadway Mgt., LLC (collectively, the property owner), as against it, and denied the property owner's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint as against them, affirmed, without costs.
Plaintiff, an operating engineer, contends that while working in the pump room of the property owner's building, he was injured when he stepped into an exposed opening or hole in a metal plate that caused him to fall. Harbour Mechanical was a contractor that the property owner retained to convert its building from a gas heating system to a Con Ed "clean steam station" (the conversion project). Plaintiff claims that Harbour, while working on the project, which included removal of an oil tank and other equipment, caused, created, exacerbated or "launche[d] a force or instrument of harm" when it removed the tank and left a large opening in the metal plate exposed (Espinal v Melville Snow Contrs., 98 NY2d 136, 140 [2002]). Plaintiff contends that the opening was not dangerous until the oil tank was removed because the opening had been beneath the equipment (see Miller v City of New York, 100 AD3d 561 [1st Dept 2012]).
We find that Supreme Court correctly denied Harbour's motion for dismissal of the complaint and cross claims against it, as well as the property owner's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint. Defendants failed to demonstrate their entitlement to judgment as a matter of law (see Lopez v New York Life Ins. Co., 90 AD3d 446 [1st Dept 2011]). Moreover, there are issues of fact whether the exposed opening in the metal plate was open and obvious and not otherwise inherently dangerous (see generally Powers v 31 E 31 LLC, 123 AD3d 421 [1st Dept 2014]).
Plaintiff testified at his deposition that on the day of the accident he was working in the building's pump room, repairing a valve on equipment that was only three or four steps away from an exposed opening in a metal plate on the floor. While facing the equipment he was working on, plaintiff stepped back to reach for a tool. As he did so, he stepped into an exposed circular opening in the metal plate, causing him to fall backwards and strike his head on the concrete floor.
Plaintiffs claim against the property owner is that it failed to maintain its property in a reasonably safe condition because the opening was a dangerous condition of which it had notice, but failed to take remedial measures (see Basso v Miller, 40 NY2d 233, 241 [1976]). Plaintiff testified that when he first noticed the exposed opening, a few months before his accident, he took a picture of it with his cell phone and showed it to property owner's manager (Kohlbrecher). Kohlbrecher told plaintiff that he was busy at the moment, but that later he would take a look at the condition for himself.
Plaintiff's claim against Harbour is that when it removed the old fuel tank that was situated on the metal plate, Harbour launched a force or instrument of harm by creating a dangerous condition or making the condition less safe than it was before Harbour did its work. Harbour accedes that it removed a tank and other equipment during the conversion project and that the tank was to be serviced. It denies, however, that it made any structural changes to the metal plate or that the metal plate was inherently dangerous. Harbour maintains that the metal plate and any opening in it, once exposed, was open and obvious, particularly since plaintiff knew it was there and even took a photo of it.
Alternatively, Harbour argues it did not owe plaintiff, a noncontracting third party, a duty of care, and that even if it did expose an opening in the metal plate when it removed the oil tank, it cannot be held liable in negligence for merely doing the work it was contractually retained to do. Harbour denies that under the terms of its contract it had any contractual obligation to cover up, remediate or protect any opening it made when removing equipment from the pump room, and that the property owner and/or subcontractors were responsible for doing so. Harbour contends that it cannot be found to have caused or created a dangerous condition or have launched a force of harm because it did not make the exposed opening in the metal plate any less safe than it was before its removal of equipment from the pump room.
Although both defendants argue that the exposed opening in the metal plate was open, obvious, readily observable and known to plaintiff, a property owner has a nondelegable duty to maintain its premises in a reasonably safe condition, taking into account the foreseeability of injury to others (Basso, 40 NY2d at 241). Moreover, although a defect or hazard may be discernable, this does not end the analysis, or compel a determination in favor of the property owner (Westbrook v WR Activities-Cabrera Mkts., 5 AD3d 69, 72 [1st Dept 2004]). Plaintiffs awareness of a dangerous condition does not negate a duty to warn of the hazard, but only goes to the issue of comparative negligence (Francis v 107-145 W. 135th St. Assoc., Ltd. Partnership, 70 AD3d 599, 600 [1st Dept 2010]). Given the exposed opening's proximity to equipment that required service, the circumstances of plaintiffs accident present an issue of fact of not only whether the condition was open and obvious, but also whether it was inherently dangerous (see Westbrook, 5 AD3d at 69, 71-73; see Rubin v Port Auth. of N.Y. & N.J., 49 AD3d 422, 422 [1st Dept 2008]). Some hazards, although discernable, may be hazardous because of their nature and location (see Westbrook at 72). Defendants did not establish that the exposed opening—given its location in the floor near other mechanical equipment in the pump room—was not only open and obvious, but that there was no duty to warn, and that the condition was not inherently dangerous (see Cupo v Karfunkel, 1 AD3d 48, 51-52 [2d Dept 2003]).
A contractual obligation, standing alone, will not give rise to tort liability in favor of a noncontracting third party (Espinal, 98 NY2d at 138]). One exception to this broad rule is where the contracting party, in failing to exercise reasonable care in the performance of his duties, "launche[s] a force or instrument of harm" (Espinal at 140). We depart from the dissent in concluding that Harbour failed to make a prima facie showing that it did not owe plaintiff a duty of care and that it did not negligently cause, create or exacerbate a dangerous condition.
Even if Harbour's contract did not require that it cover, remediate, fill in or repair any of the floor openings resulting from its work, Harbour did not take even minimal corrective measures to protect the exposed opening in the floor after it removed the obsolete oil tank. Thus, while its removal of the tank was in fulfillment of its contractual obligation, a reasonable jury could find that Harbour's leaving an exposed and unprotected opening in the floor exposed, caused or created a dangerous condition even if previously the metal plate containing the opening was not unsafe. The dissent's view relies on cases where the defendant did not owe a duty of care because the condition the plaintiff complained of was precisely what was called for in the defendant's contract (Fung v Japan Airlines Co., Ltd., 9 NY3d 351 [2007]; Peluso v ERM, 63 AD3d 1025 [2d Dept 2009]; Miller v City of New York, 100 AD3d 561 [1st Dept 2012]; Agosto v 30th Place Holding, LLC, 73 AD3d 492, 492-493 [1st Dept 2010]). We take no issue with Harbour's argument, and the dissent's view, that Harbour was contractually obligated to remove the tank and that it fulfilled its contract by doing so. Our view, however, is that while the metal plate and its opening was under the tank, it was not a hazard because the tank prevented, or at least made it difficult, for anyone to step into that area. However, once the tank was removed, and the opening below it exposed, the metal plate and its opening was no longer protected. There is a view of the facts that Harbour, by leaving the exposed opening without any kind of warning or minimal protection, created or caused an unsafe condition, or made the previously obscured opening in the metal plate "less safe" than before Harbour did its work (see Timmins v Tishman Constr. Corp., 9 AD3d 62, 67 [1st Dept 2004], lv dismissed 4 NY3d 739 [2004]; cf. Santos v Daniello Carting Co., LLC, 148 AD3d 463, 464 [1st Dept 2017], lv denied 30 NY3d 903 [2017]). Thus the issue is not whether Harbour had a contractual obligation to protect the opening, but whether by leaving the opening in the metal plate exposed it created an unreasonable risk of harm to the plaintiff.
The same issues of fact preclude summary dismissal of 1440 Broadway's cross claim as against Harbour for common-law indemnification and/or contribution (see Scuderi v Independence Community Bank Corp., 65 AD3d 928 [1st Dept 2009]). Contrary to Harbour's argument in support of dismissing the cross claim for contractual indemnification, the indemnification provision in its construction contract does not run afoul of General Obligations Law § 5-322.1, because it contains the language "to the fullest extent permitted by law," which limits Harbour's obligation to indemnify to its own negligence (Brooks v Judlau Contr., Inc., 11 NY3d 204, 210 [2008]; see also Dutton v Pankow Bldrs., 296 AD2d 321, 322 [1st Dept 2002], lv denied 99 NY2d 511 [2003]).
We have considered the parties' remaining arguments for affirmative relief and find them unavailing.
Concur—Manzanet-Daniels, J.P., Gische and Kern, JJ.
The exposed area is sometimes described in the briefs as an opening or hole and the area encompassing the opening or hole is at times as grating made of metal, a metal grate or a metal plate. For expediency, the area at issue will he referred to here as an exposed opening in a metal plate.