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THE COLLAPSE OF A TRENCH IN WHICH PLAINTIFF WAS WORKING WAS AN ELEVATION-RELATED ACCIDENT COVERED BY LABOR LAW 240(1) (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, in a full-fledged opinion by Justice Higgitt, reversing Supreme Court, determined the collapse of a trench in which plaintiff was working was an elevation-related accident covered by Labor Law 240(1):

… [P]laintiff’s injuries were the direct consequence of defendants[‘] … failure to provide adequate protection against a risk arising from a physically significant elevation differential. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to those defendants, the trench was approximately six and a half-feet deep at the time of the incident. Plaintiff is five-and-a-half feet tall and was kneeling at the moment of the right wall’s collapse. There was, therefore, well over a one-foot height differential between the top of the earthen wall and the top of plaintiff’s head. That height differential cannot be characterized as de minimis in light of the extent of that differential, the amount of dirt that poured into the trench when the right wall collapsed suddenly, and the amount of force the dirt was capable of generating … . Moreover, the earthen wall, which required securing for the purposes of the undertaking, collapsed because of the effects of gravity, and the makeshift shoring plainly failed to provide adequate protection against the risk arising from the physically significant elevation differential. The harm to plaintiff flowed directly from the application of the force of gravity to the earthen wall; plaintiff’s injury is directly attributable to the risk posed by the physically-significant elevation differential … . Rivas v Seward Park Hous. Corp., 2023 NY Slip Op 04415, First Dept 8-24-23

Practice Point: The collapse of the inadequately secured wall of the trench in which plaintiff was working was an elevation-related, gravity-related accident covered by Labor Law 240(1). Plaintiff was entitled to summary judgment.

 

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