Failure to Wear a Safety Harness Could Not Constitute the Sole Proximate Cause of Plaintiff’s Fall (Caused by the Failure of a Scaffolding Plank)—Therefore Plaintiff Entitled to Partial Summary Judgment on the Labor Law 240(1) Claim

The Third Department noted that plaintiff’s failure to wear a safety harness did not preclude recovery for a fall caused by the failure of a scaffolding plank. Under the facts, plaintiff’s failure to wear a harness could not constitute the sole proximate cause of the accident:

…[D]efendant alleged that claimant was recalcitrant in, among other things, failing to use an available safety harness. With respect to such defense, liability pursuant to Labor Law § 240 (1) does not attach when safety devices are readily available at the work site and a claimant knows that he or she is expected to use them but, for no good reason, chooses not to and such omission is the sole proximate cause of the accident … . However, where a device intended to support a worker at an elevated height fails and that failure is a proximate cause of the accident, it is “conceptually impossible for a statutory violation (which serves as a proximate cause for a [claimant’s] injury) to occupy the same ground as a [claimant’s] sole proximate cause for the injury” … .

Here, the facts are undisputed that, in an effort to assist with the construction of a platform, claimant stepped onto a plank on the existing scaffold, which was the primary safety device erected for the work, and the plank collapsed, causing claimant to fall and sustain his injuries. Accordingly, claimant’s decision not to wear an available safety harness, or employ other safety measures that might have been available, could not have been the sole proximate cause of the accident, and the Court of Claims correctly awarded claimants partial summary judgment on the issue of liability with respect to their Labor Law § 240 (1) claim … . Fabiano v State of New York, 2014 NY Slip Op 08695, 3rd Dept 12-11-14