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Plaintiff Was Catapulted Into the Air from a Flatbed Truck When a Heavy Bundle Landed on the Plank He Was Standing On—Labor Law 240(1) Action Should Not Have Been Dismissed

The Second Department determined that the Labor Law 240(1) cause of action should not have been dismissed.  Plaintiff was catapulted into the air when heavy bundles of rebar were being rolled off a flatbed truck.  A bundle landed on the plank plaintiff was standing on and the plank raised up sharply.  A hoist had previously been used to remove the bundles from the truck.  The court also noted that the common law negligence and Labor Law 200 causes of action against one of the defendants should not have been dismissed because of a question of fact about the defendant’s supervisory role:

“Labor Law § 240(1) was designed to prevent those types of accidents in which the scaffold, hoist, stay, ladder or other protective device proved inadequate to shield the injured worker from harm directly flowing from the application of the force of gravity to an object or person” … . “The relevant inquiry—–one which may be answered in the affirmative even in situations where the object does not fall on the worker–—is rather whether the harm flows directly from the application of the force of gravity to the object” … .

The launch of the plaintiff from the truck along with the wooden “four by four” plank upon which he was standing flowed directly from the application of the force of gravity to the bundle of rebar … . The elevation differential between the flatbed truck and the ground was significant given the 8,000-to-10,000-pound weight of the bundles of rebar, and the amount of force they were capable of generating, “even over the course of a relatively short descent” … .

The causal connection between the bundles’ “inadequately regulated descent and plaintiff’s injury” was unmediated by any safety device, such as the crane that had hoisted the bundles earlier in the day … .

The plaintiff’s evidence established, prima facie, that the … respondents violated Labor Law § 240 by failing to provide an enumerated safety device, such as the hoist that had been provided earlier in the day to secure the bundle of rebar as it was being lowered, and that the Tillary respondents’ failure to provide an appropriate safety device was a proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury … . Treile v Brooklyn Tillary LLC, 2014 NY Slip Op 06197, 2nd Dept 9-17-14

 

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