| Williams v City of Niagara Falls |
| 2007 NY Slip Op 07241 [43 AD3d 1426] |
| September 28, 2007 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
| William M. Williams, Jr., et al., Appellants, v City of Niagara Fallset al., Respondents. |
—[*1] Brown & Kelly, LLP, Buffalo (Nicole B. Palmerton of counsel), fordefendants-respondents.
Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Niagara County (Ralph A. Boniello, III, J.),entered January 22, 2007 in a personal injury action. The order, insofar as appealed from, deniedplaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment on liability on the Labor Law § 240 (1)claim.
It is hereby ordered that the order insofar as appealed from be and the same hereby isunanimously reversed on the law without costs and the motion is granted.
Memorandum: Plaintiffs commenced this action seeking damages for injuries sustained byWilliam M. Williams, Jr. (plaintiff) when he fell from the roof of a building owned by defendantCity of Niagara Falls. We conclude that Supreme Court erred in denying plaintiffs' motion forpartial summary judgment on liability on the Labor Law § 240 (1) claim. Plaintiffsestablished their entitlement to judgment as a matter of law with respect to Labor Law §240 (1) by establishing that plaintiff was not furnished with the requisite safety devices and thatthe absence of appropriate safety devices was a proximate cause of his injuries (see Howe vSyracuse Univ., 306 AD2d 891 [2003]), and defendants thus failed to raise an issue of factwhether the actions of plaintiff were the sole proximate cause of his injuries (see Whiting v Dave Hennig, Inc., 28AD3d 1105, 1106 [2006]). Contrary to defendants' further contention, the presence of asafety harness in plaintiff's truck and "[t]he mere presence of [other safety devices] somewhere atthe worksite" does not satisfy defendants' duty to provide appropriate safety devices (Zimmerv Chemung County Performing Arts, 65 NY2d 513, 524 [1985], rearg denied 65NY2d 1054 [1985]). Present—Gorski, J.P., Smith, Centra, Fahey and Green, JJ.