QUESTIONS OF FACT ABOUT WHETHER PLAINTIFF’S INJURY WAS DUE TO DEFENDANTS’ FAILURE TO PROVIDE HIM WITH THE PROPER PROTECTIVE DEVICES PRECLUDED SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS LABOR LAW 240(1) ACTION; THE DISSENT DISAGREED; A STACK OF CONCRETE BOARDS FELL OFF A TRUCK ONTO PLAINTIFF WHEN THE SKIDS UNDER THE BOARDS BROKE (FIRST DEPT).
The First Department, reversing Supreme Court, over a dissent, determined plaintiff was not entitled to summary judgment on his Labor Law 240(1) cause of action. Plaintiff was injured when a stack of cement boards fell off a truck onto him after the skids under the concrete boards broke:
Plaintiff failed to demonstrate conclusively that the accident was proximately caused by [defendants’] failure to provide him with proper protective devices for the performance of his work. The load of cement boards atop the pallet jack did not fall because of an inadequacy or deficiency in the pallet jack but, rather, because the wooden skids underneath the load of cement boards broke, causing the load to fall from the pallet jack. Coupled with the dispute as to whether plaintiff was permitted to use the street level hoist for the delivery of cement boards, this evidence renders it impossible to determine as a matter of law that [defendants] failed to supply plaintiff with adequate safety devices for the performance of his work and that this failure was a proximate cause of plaintiff’s accident … . Valle v Port Auth. of N.Y. & N.J., 2020 NY Slip Op 07685, First Dept 12-17-20