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PLAINTIFF ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON HIS LABOR LAW 240 (1) CLAIM; QUESTION OF FACT WHETHER INDEMNIFICATION AGREEMENT WAS INTENDED TO BE EFFECTIVE RETROACTIVELY.

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined plaintiff was entitled to summary judgment on his Labor Law 240 (1) cause of action. Plaintiff, who was not wearing a harness, had fallen through a skylight. The anchor points for harnesses had not yet been installed. The employer’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the property owner’s third-party complaint seeking indemnification was, however, properly denied. The Workers’ Compensation Law allows suit only when the injury is grave (not so here) or where there is a written indemnification agreement. Here there was an indemnification agreement entered after the accident. There was a question of fact whether the agreement was intended to be effective retroactively:

Here, the plaintiff established his prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law by submitting evidence that he was not provided with necessary protection from the gravity-related risk of his work and that the absence of the necessary protection was a proximate cause of his injuries … .

… An employer may be held liable for contribution or indemnification only when its employee has sustained a grave injury as defined by the Workers’ Compensation Law or when there is a “written contract entered into prior to the accident or occurrence by which the employer had expressly agreed to contribution or indemnification of the claimant” … . The Workers’ Compensation Law does not bar indemnification or contribution pursuant to a written agreement that was entered into after the employee’s injury and which the parties agree will have retroactive effect … . “[I]ndemnity contracts are to be strictly construed to avoid reading into them duties which the parties did not intend to be assumed” … . Therefore, an indemnity contract will not be held to have retroactive effect “unless by its express words or necessary implication it clearly appears to be the parties’ intention to include past obligations” … . Cacanoski v 35 Cedar Place Assoc., LLC, 2017 NY Slip Op 00956, 2nd Dept 2-8-17

 

LABOR LAW-CONSTRUCTION LAW (PLAINTIFF ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON HIS LABOR LAW 240 (1) CLAIM, QUESTION OF FACT WHETHER INDEMNIFICATION AGREEMENT WAS INTENDED TO BE EFFECTIVE RETROACTIVELY)/WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW (PLAINTIFF ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON HIS LABOR LAW 240 (1) CLAIM, QUESTION OF FACT WHETHER INDEMNIFICATION AGREEMENT WAS INTENDED TO BE EFFECTIVE RETROACTIVELY)/CONTRACT LAW (WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW, INDEMNIFICATION AGREEMENT, QUESTION OF FACT WHETHER INDEMNIFICATION AGREEMENT WAS INTENDED TO BE EFFECTIVE RETROACTIVELY)

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