Court Opinion

ID: 9786500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:56:53.617434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:45.788419
License: Public Domain

— Yesawich, Jr., J.
During working hours on June 5, 1979, plaintiff Salvatore Bottone, Jr., an employee of General Electric (GE) at its plant in the City of Schenectady, fell while cautiously attempting to walk down a debris-littered stairway from the sixth floor to the fifth floor of building No. 56. At the time, the building was being renovated by defendants Levi Case Company (Levi Case) and New York Telephone Company (NYTEL). Bottone and his wife thereafter instituted suit against NYTEL and Levi Case seeking compensation for their injuries, medical expenses, lost wages and loss of consortium. A jury ultimately found NYTEL and Levi Case equally responsible and awarded Bottone and his wife damages in the amount of $380,000 and $80,000, respectively. In response to defendants’ posttrial motion, the trial court reduced the wife’s damages to $75,000, the amount sought for her in plaintiffs’ ad damnum clause. On this appeal, both defendants contend that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, that it was error for the jury not to find that plaintiff was contributorily negligent, and that the damages adjudicated are excessive.
The evidence demonstrates that Levi Case was required by its contract with GE to keep its work area clean and free from debris during the latter’s working hours, and that on two occasions, in May of 1979, a GE employee overseeing the building’s renovation complained to Levi Case about accumulations of debris in the stairwells. Levi Case’s foreman responded by initially ensuring that the areas were clean and, after the second report that its subcontractors were not picking up daily, by promising to have a specific Levi Case employee inspect and clear accumulated debris. On the day before the accident, a subcontractor of Levi Case had been installing insulation over ducts on floors five and six of building No. 56. Four GE employees testified that the following day the stairwell serving the sixth floor was littered with ductwork, insulation and telephone boxes.
During the renovation, NYTEL alone provided telephone service for building No. 56. At 8:15 on the morning of June 5,1979, the date Bottone fell, a subordinate of GE’s renovation supervisor telephoned NYTEL requesting it to remove telephone boxes *923left on the stairs and landing outside the sixth floor; NYTEL assured it would do so. At about 4:00 p.m. when the accident occurred, the condition of the stairway, rather than having been improved, had worsened.
With respect to the contention that plaintiffs’ failure to demonstrate that defendants were responsible for the debris precludes recovery, we note that the evidence linking NYTEL to the material strewn about the stairway is no more tenuous than that accorded recognition in Keefner v City of Albany (77 AD2d 747, lv denied 52 NY2d 704). On the basis of evidence in Keefner showing that (1) the defendant had employees on the premises on the day of the accident; (2) no other contractors were involved in the building; (3) defendant had a pipe-threading machine on the premises; (4) the machine used oil for the thread cutting process; and (5) a witness claimed to have seen oil from the machine spill to the floor, the jury found the defendant liable for the plaintiff’s injuries, a finding which this court upheld (id.). There was no direct evidence that the spilled oil on which the plaintiff slipped belonged to the defendant or that the defendant’s employees caused the spill; however, no other contractors were working in the area of the spill. Similarly, here, plaintiffs introduced evidence that NYTEL was the sole telephone company working in building No. 56; that NYTEL employees worked on the sixth floor thereof on both the day of and the day prior to the accident; and that the debris which NYTEL agreed to remove on the morning of the accident was among the debris which caused Bottone’s fall. On such evidence, the jury could have reasonably inferred that NYTEL’s failure to pick up its materials was a substantial and foreseeable cause of plaintiff’s injuries.
Like reasoning supports the jury’s verdict as against Levi Case, which was contractually obligated to clean up after its subcontractors and ostensibly had delegated an employee to perform that task. Yet J. F. Swick Insulation, a subcontractor, had worked in the building all day on June 4,1979 and insulation and furring strips were observed the following morning scattered in the area of the sixth floor stairwell. The jury’s conclusion that Levi Case was also responsible for plaintiffs’ injuries was thus amply justified.
Defendants’ contention that some undefined supervening act was the proximate cause of plaintiffs’ injuries, thus absolving them of liability, is not persuasive. Whether an intervening cause exists and whether it is unforeseeable, thus severing the causal connection between defendants’ conduct and plaintiffs’ injuries, is also principally a question for the jury (Derdiarian v *924Felix Contr. Co., 51 NY2d 308, 315). Defendants merely surmise that intervening causes scattered the debris and aggravated the danger posed thereby; there is no direct evidence to that effect. As various inferences can be drawn from the established facts, deference to the fact finder’s resolution is appropriate.
Nor do we find reversible error in the jury’s determination that Bottone was not contributorily negligent in choosing to descend the stairs rather than use a nearby elevator. Therefore, the provisions of CPLR1411 are not applicable here. Selection of one alternate route over another generally is not negligence ás a matter of law, but creates a factual issue for the jury (Keefner v City of Albany, supra, p 748; see also, Capelli v Prudential Bldg. Maintenance, 99 AD2d 501). In this instance, the evidence discloses that GE employees traveling between the fifth and sixth floors commonly resorted to the stairs rather than the erratically operating elevator that served the building. Furthermore, the fact that two other GE employees decided to and walked through the debris on those very stairs on the day of the accident suggests that Bottone’s decision to do so did not drop below the standard to which he should conform for his own protection (see, Keefner v City of Albany, supra, p 748).
Finally, the nature and extent of the injuries sustained by the 46-year-old Bottone support the jury’s award. Given evidence of permanent and chronic back pain, for which Bottone often uses a portable transcutaneous electric nerve stimulator to alleviate pain, difficulty sitting, severe restrictions on past, present and future activities due to the injuries, sexual dysfunction, and lost earnings and medical expenses totaling approximately $50,000 (though much of it can be covered by workers’ compensation), the verdict cannot be said to be unconscionable or outside reasonable bounds (see, Le Bel v Airlines Limousine Serv., 92 AD2d 996, 998).
Judgment affirmed, with costs. Mahoney, P. J., Casey, Mikoll and Yesawich, Jr., JJ., concur; Harvey, J., dissents and votes to reverse in the following memorandum.