PRIME CONTRACTOR WAS A STATUTORY AGENT OF THE OWNER, LABOR LAW 200 AND 241(6) CAUSES OF ACTION PROPERLY SURVIVED SUMMARY JUDGMENT, PLAINTIFF TRIPPED OVER EXTENSION CORDS ON THE FLOOR 3RD DEPT.
The Third Department determined defendant prime contractor was a statutory agent of the owner such that liability under the Labor Law could be imposed. Plaintiff (Mitchell) tripped over extension cords on the floor. Labor Law 200 and 241(6) causes of action survived summary judgment:
Labor Law § 200 “codifies the common-law duty of an owner or employer to provide employees with a safe place to work” … . Liability, however, will only be imposed upon a showing that the party charged with the duty to provide a safe work place had “the authority to control the activity bringing about the injury to enable it to avoid or correct an unsafe condition”… . In a case, such as this, where the injury is caused by a dangerous condition at the work site, the prerequisite of control necessary to impose liability requires “control of the place of injury and actual or constructive notice of the unsafe condition”… . …
A statutory agency relationship is created where the owner or contractor delegates the work giving rise to the Labor Law § 241 (6) duties to a third party, at which point “that third party then obtains the concomitant authority to supervise and control that work”… . While prime contractors are immune from liability pursuant to Labor Law § 241 (6) where they lack contractual privity with the injured plaintiff’s employer and have “no authority to supervise or control the work being performed at the time of the injury” … ,the record establishes that defendant was in contractual privity with TBS [plaintiff’s employer] and that the owner had delegated all mechanical work to defendant by hiring it as the sole mechanical contractor for the project, thereby demonstrating the owner’s intent to delegate supervisory control over TBS’s work to defendant as its statutory agent … . Mitchell v T. McElligott, Inc., 2017 NY Slip Op 05653, 3rd Dept 7-13-17
LABOR LAW-CONSTRUCTION LAW (PRIME CONTRACTOR WAS A STATUTORY AGENT OF THE OWNER, LABOR LAW 200 AND 241(6) CAUSES OF ACTION PROPERLY SURVIVED SUMMARY JUDGMENT, PLAINTIFF TRIPPED OVER EXTENSION CORDS ON THE FLOOR 3RD DEPT)