Salon v Millinery Syndicate, Inc.
2008 NY Slip Op 00677 [47 AD3d 914]
January 29, 2008
Appellate Division, Second Department
As corrected through Wednesday, March 12, 2008


Jan Salon, Respondent,
v
Millinery Syndicate, Inc., et al.,Appellants.

[*1]Smith Mazure Director Wilkins Young & Yagerman, P.C., New York, N.Y. (Mark A.Taustine of counsel), for appellants.

Lipsig Shapey Manus & Moverman, P.C. (Pollack, Pollack, Isaac & De Cicco, New York,N.Y. [Brian J. Isaac] of counsel), for respondent.

In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the defendants appeal from an order ofthe Supreme Court, Kings County (Vaughan, J.), dated November 29, 2006, which granted theplaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability on the Labor Law § 240(1) cause of action.

Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.

The defendants Millinery Syndicate, Inc., and Steinberg & Poloik Management Corp. are theowner and manager, respectively, of a building located on West 39th Street in Manhattan. Whileperforming painting work in the defendants' building, the plaintiff was injured when theunsecured ladder upon which he was standing shifted and it fell to the floor. Under thesecircumstances, the plaintiff established, prima face, that the defendants violated their statutoryduty pursuant to Labor Law § 240 (1), and that the violation was a proximate cause of theplaintiff's injuries (see Blake vNeighborhood Hous. Servs. of N.Y. City, 1 NY3d 280 [2003]; Hanna v Gellman, 29 AD3d 953[2006]; Loreto v 376 St. JohnsCondominium, Inc., 15 AD3d 454 [2005]; Bryan v City of New York, 206AD2d 448 [1994]). In opposition, the defendants failed to raise a triable issue of fact as towhether there was a statutory violation, or whether the plaintiff's own acts or omissions were thesole cause of the accident (see Blake vNeighborhood Hous. Servs. of N.Y. City, 1 NY3d 280 [2003]). Accordingly, theSupreme Court properly granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the issue of[*2]liability on his Labor Law § 240 (1) cause of action (see Loreto v 376 St. Johns Condominium,Inc., 15 AD3d 454 [2005]; Mannes v Kamber Mgt., 284 AD2d 310 [2001]).

Furthermore, the defendants' "mere hope that further discovery will reveal something helpfulto their case provides no basis for postponing the determination of the plaintiff's motion"(Public Adm'r of Kings County v Tomassetti, 271 AD2d 515 [2000]; see Lopez v WS Distrib., Inc., 34AD3d 759 [2006]). Skelos, J.P., Santucci, Lifson and Carni, JJ., concur.


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