Court Opinion

ID: 9818322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 05:37:04.208635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:47.711249
License: Public Domain

OPINION OF THE COURT
Andrias, J.
Plaintiff should not have been granted partial summary judgment on his Labor Law § 240 (1) claim.
Plaintiff, an employee of North Shore Neon Sign (Neon), was injured while painting over graffiti on a billboard leased by defendant Fuel Outdoor, LLC (Fuel). The billboard was located inside a fenced-in lot and had a row of blocks in front of it that served as counterweights to prevent it from tipping over.
According to plaintiff, while standing on a stack of three of the concrete blocks, he lost his balance as he reached up to loosen one of the straps that held the image to the billboard frame so he could paint underneath it. Although plaintiff had been given a truck equipped with a cherry picker arm that extended 80 feet, with controls inside a basket at the end of the arm that manipulated the arm’s movement, a safety harness and lanyard, and two ladders (8 feet and 24 feet), he did not attempt to use any of these devices, choosing instead to use the blocks as a platform. Plaintiff maintains that he could not paint from inside the cherry picker basket because the concrete blocks and light fixtures in front of the billboard were in the way, that he took off his harness because there was no way for him to “tie off” by attaching it to the structure, and that the ladders could not be used due to the configuration of the site and because no one was with him to “foot” the 24-foot ladder.
To prevail on a Labor Law § 240 (1) claim, a plaintiff must establish that a violation of the statute, i.e., a failure to provide adequate protection against a risk arising from a physically significant elevation differential, was a proximate cause of his or her injuries (see Runner v New York Stock Exch., Inc., 13 NY3d 599, 603 [2009]; Blake v Neighborhood Hous. Servs. of *89N.Y. City, 1 NY3d 280, 287 [2003]). “[W]here a plaintiffs own actions are the sole proximate cause of the accident, there can be no liability” (Cahill v Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Auth., 4 NY3d 35, 39 [2004]). Furthermore,
“[t]o raise a triable issue of fact as to whether a plaintiff was the sole proximate cause of an accident, the defendant must produce evidence that adequate safety devices were available, that the plaintiff knew that they were available and was expected to use them, and that the plaintiff unreasonably chose not to do so, causing the injury sustained” (Nacewicz v Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Cross, 105 AD3d 402, 402-403 [1st Dept 2013]).
Here, the record includes conflicting evidence regarding whether plaintiff was provided with adequate safety devices but failed to use them, which raises a triable issue of fact whether his conduct was the sole proximate cause of his injuries (see Robinson v East Med. Ctr., LP, 6 NY3d 550, 554-555 [2006]). Unlike cases where a plaintiff was injured when he used his discretion to choose one of several safety devices provided and that device proved inadequate, in this case plaintiff was supplied with four safety devices and chose not to use any of them, electing instead to go straight to the concrete blocks, whose intended purpose was to act as a counterweight, not as a platform.
The dissent finds that defendant Fuel’s submissions did not controvert plaintiff’s evidence that the cherry picker and ladders were inadequate due to the configuration of the work site. The dissent also finds that defendant failed to submit any admissible evidence that the billboard itself, or any of its components, were safe or provided appropriate anchorage sites for plaintiff’s harness lanyard. However, as to plaintiff’s testimony that he could not paint from the bucket, James Taggart, vice president at Fuel, testified that in the past he had seen a Neon worker changing the sign’s copy using a boom truck with a cherry picker that had been parked on the street outside the fence. As to plaintiff’s claim that the lanyard could not be tied off, Fuel’s expert stated that
“there were numerous locations on the billboard and its frame where the plaintiff could have tied off, including but not limited to the tubing and pip*90ing out of which the billboard frame was constructed, the pieces of kindorf from which the billboard lights were supported and the straps on the face of the billboard.”
Thus, an issue exists as to whether safe alternative means of painting the billboard were available to plaintiff and whether his failure to use those means was the sole proximate cause of his accident (see Harris v Hueber-Breuer Constr. Co., Inc., 67 AD3d 1351 [4th Dept 2009]).
Accordingly, the order of the Supreme Court, New York County (Joan M. Kenney, J.), entered November 26, 2013, which, to the extent appealed from, granted plaintiffs motion for partial summary judgment on his Labor Law § 240 (1) claim as against defendant Fuel Outdoor, LLC, should be reversed, on the law, without costs, and the motion denied.