PLAINTIFF INJURED HIS BACK LIFTING A HEAVY METAL STRUCTURE A FEW INCHES TO ALLOW ROOFING MATERIAL TO BE PUT DOWN UNDERNEATH IT; THE INJURY WAS NOT THE RESULT OF AN ELEVATION-RELATED HAZARD COVERED BY LABOR LAW 240 (1) (FOURTH DEPT).
The Fourth Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined defendants’ motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s Labor Law 240 (1) cause of action should have been granted. Plaintiff injured his back lifting a metal structure a few inches so roofing material could be applied underneath it. The injury was not related to the failure to provide a safety device to prevent an elevation-related injury:
… “[L]iability may . . . be imposed under [Labor Law § 240 (1)] only where the ‘plaintiff’s injuries were the direct consequence of a failure to provide adequate protection against a risk arising from a physically significant elevation differential’ ” … . The statute “was designed to prevent those types of accidents in which the scaffold, hoist, stay, ladder or other protective device proved inadequate to shield the injured worker from harm directly flowing from the application of the force of gravity to an object or person” … . … [T]he protections of Labor Law § 240 (1) ” ‘do not encompass any and all perils that may be connected in some tangential way with the effects of gravity’ ” … .
… Although plaintiff’s back injury was “tangentially related to the effects of gravity upon the [structure] he was lifting, it was not caused by the limited type of elevation-related hazards encompassed by Labor Law § 240 (1)” … . … [P]laintiff’s injuries “resulted from a ‘routine workplace risk[]’ of a construction site and not a ‘pronounced risk[] arising from construction work site elevation differentials’ ” … . Branch v 1908 W. Ridge Rd, LLC, 2021 NY Slip Op 06248, Fourth Dept 11-12-21
