ALTHOUGH THE BOOM TRUCK WAS 700 FEET FROM WHERE IT WAS LOADED WHEN THE BOOM STRUCK AN OVERHEAD SIGN, THE TRUCK WAS AT THE WORK SITE WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE LABOR LAW, ALTHOUGH THE INDUSTRIAL CODE PROVISION ADDRESSED THE POSITION OF THE BOOM BUT NOT THE NATURE OF THE ACCIDENT, THE PROVISION WAS BROADLY WORDED AND RAISED A QUESTION OF FACT ON THE LABOR LAW 241 (6) CAUSE OF ACTION 1ST DEPT.

The First Department, reversing (modifying) Supreme Court, over an extensive dissent, determined defendants should not have been awarded summary judgment on plaintiff’s Labor Law 241 (6) cause of action. Plaintiffs were injured when the extended boom on a boom truck struck an overhead sign on a bridge as the truck was being driven away from where it was loaded. Supreme Court had found the accident did not occur at the work site so the Labor Law was not implicated. The First Department held that the truck, which was 700 feet from where it was loaded when the boom struck the sign, was at the work site within the meaning of the Labor Law. The court further found that an Industrial Code provision which related to the position of the boom, but not to the precise facts of the accident, raised a question of fact sufficient to allow the Labor Law 241 (6) cause of action to proceed:

At this stage, … an issue of fact exists as to whether defendants violated section 23-8.2(d)(3) of the Industrial Code, pertaining to “[m]obile crane travel,” which provides that “[a] mobile crane, with or without load, shall not travel with the boom so high that it may bounce back over the cab”… . … Defendants complain that there was no evidence that the boom bounced back over the cab. However, the regulation is violated when a mobile crane has “the boom so high that it may bounce back over the cab” … . Even assuming defendants are correct, the boom was high enough to strike a gantry sign. We reject the dissent’s argument that the regulation was not implicated because plaintiffs were not injured by the boom bouncing over the cab, but rather, when the boom hit the road sign. ​James v Alpha Painting & Constr. Co., Inc., 2017 NY Slip Op 05692, 1st Dept 7-18-17

LABOR LAW-CONSTRUCTION LAW (ALTHOUGH THE BOOM TRUCK WAS 700 FEET FROM WHERE IT WAS LOADED WHEN THE BOOM STRUCK AN OVERHEAD SIGN, THE TRUCK WAS AT THE WORK SITE WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE LABOR LAW, ALTHOUGH THE INDUSTRIAL CODE PROVISION ADDRESSED THE POSITION OF THE BOOM BUT NOT THE NATURE OF THE ACCIDENT, THE PROVISION WAS BROADLY WORDED AND RAISED A QUESTION OF FACT ON THE LABOR LAW 241 (6) CAUSE OF ACTION 1ST DEPT)