| Petticrew v St. Lawrence Cement, Inc. |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 10087 [57 AD3d 1266] |
| December 24, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, Third Department |
| Timothy E. Petticrew et al., Respondents-Appellants, v St. LawrenceCement, Inc., et al., Appellants-Respondents. |
—[*1] Law Office of Steinberg, Symer & Platt, L.L.P., Poughkeepsie (Ellen Fischer Bopp of counsel),for North American Kiln Service, Inc., appellant-respondent. Powers & Santola, L.L.P., Albany (Michael J. Hutter of counsel), forrespondents-appellants.
Carpinello, J. (1) Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court (McNamara, J.), entered May 29,2007 in Albany County, which, among other things, granted plaintiffs' motion for partial summaryjudgment, and (2) cross appeals from a judgment of said court (Platkin, J.), entered October 4, 2007 inAlbany County, upon a decision of the court awarding damages to plaintiffs.
This negligence and Labor Law action stems from an accident that plaintiff Timothy E. Petticrew(hereinafter plaintiff) had in the course of his employment as a welder. On the day in question, plaintiffwas working atop scaffolding inside a kiln owned by defendant St. Lawrence Cement, Inc. when hefell, fracturing his leg and ankle. Supreme Court (McNamara, J.) granted plaintiff and his wife,derivatively, summary judgment on their Labor Law § 240 (1) cause of action and the matterproceeded to a trial on damages. Because we conclude that Supreme Court erred in granting plaintiffssummary judgment in the first instance, we modify that order and reach no other issue.[*2]
To recover under Labor Law § 240 (1), a worker mustdemonstrate that an owner or contractor has breached the statutory duty to provide elevation-relatedsafety devices and that such failure was the proximate cause of the worker's injuries (see e.g. Ball v Cascade Tissue Group-N.Y.,Inc., 36 AD3d 1187, 1188 [2007]; Albert v Williams Lubricants, Inc., 35 AD3d 1115, 1116 [2006]; Gilbert v Albany Med. Ctr., 9 AD3d643, 644 [2004]). Here, plaintiffs allege that the scaffolding failed and that St. Lawrence neglectedto provide a proper tie off point to which plaintiff could attach his safety harness and lanyard. Assumingthat plaintiffs demonstrated a prima facie entitlement to summary judgment on this claim, "[w]hen thedefendant presents some evidence that the device furnished was adequate and properly placed and thatthe conduct of the [worker] may be the sole proximate cause of his or her injuries, partial summaryjudgment on the issue of liability will be denied because factual issues exist" (Ball v Cascade TissueGroup-N.Y., Inc., 36 AD3d at 1188; see Blake v Neighborhood Hous. Servs. of N.Y. City, 1 NY3d 280,290 [2003]; Torres v Mazzone Admin.Group, Inc., 46 AD3d 1040, 1041 [2007], lv denied 10 NY3d 706 [2008]). Wefind that St. Lawrence has raised triable issues of fact precluding summary judgment on the Labor Law§ 240 (1) claim.
The kiln in which plaintiff was working was a cylinder, 17 feet in diameter, and a "spider" had beenerected on the inside so as to maintain the kiln's structural integrity during repair work. A spider iscomposed of steel beams arranged in the form of an asterisk and welded to the inside of the kiln at eightequidistant points, described by the parties with reference to positions on the face of a clock. Thebeams are also welded at the centerpoint and reinforced by a metal plate. At the time of his injury,plaintiff was in the process of dismantling the entire spider, which required him to stand on an eight- tonine-foot high scaffolding to permit him to cut each beam with a torch. He removed each beam inpieces, beginning at the ceiling and moving towards the center plate. Plaintiff testified at his depositionthat, prior to beginning his work, he tied off his harness and lanyard to a pad eye[FN*]that was affixed to the 12 o'clock beam, about a foot down from the kiln wall. According to him, hefirst removed the beams located at the 1 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions and then proceeded to cut theweld that attached the 12 o'clock beam to the kiln wall, a mere foot from the pad eye securing hislanyard. He further testified that he then began to remove the 11 o'clock beam and, as soon as he cutthe weld that attached that beam to the kiln wall, the welds attaching the remaining beams failed and thespider collapsed, pulling him off the scaffolding to the floor of the kiln.
The only witness to the accident, plaintiff's coworker Edward Ulmer, related a drastically differentversion of events. Ulmer testified at his deposition that, just prior to the accident, all of thebeams of the spider had been removed except those in the 11 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions.According to Ulmer, as plaintiff cut the weld in the 11 o'clock position, the remains of the spider fell ontop of plaintiff, knocking both he and the scaffolding to the ground and pinning plaintiff to the floor of thekiln. Ulmer testified further that he then had to lift the spider off plaintiff and that, upon removingplaintiff's harness and lanyard, he discovered that the lanyard was not even attached.
Given these discordant versions of events, there is an issue of fact as to whether the scaffoldingcollapsed or otherwise failed to support plaintiff in violation of Labor Law § 240 (1). [*3]Under plaintiff's own version of events, no failure of the scaffoldingoccurred; rather, he was pulled from it by the falling spider to which his lanyard was allegedlyattached. Even under Ulmer's version, according to which the spider collapsed onto plaintiff and thescaffolding, causing them to likewise collapse, a question of fact remains as to whether the scaffoldingshould have been expected to withstand such weight (see Labor Law § 240 [3]).
Next, while it is undisputed that plaintiff was wearing a safety harness with a lanyard at the time ofthe accident, a question of fact has been raised concerning whether a proper tie off point for the lanyardwas provided. St. Lawrence's senior maintenance supervisor testified that, because welders changework areas frequently, they weld their own pad eyes to tie themselves off. Similarly, its maintenancemanager and human resource safety representative testified that the welders working on the inside of akiln are themselves responsible for attaching pad eyes as needed. Plaintiff himself did not dispute thispoint. Indeed, according to him, he could have made a pad eye from scrap material and could haveattached it to the kiln wall free from the spider, but instead elected not to do so because a pad eye wasalready available on the spider itself. Notwithstanding, plaintiff submitted an expert affidavit that opinedthat it was St. Lawrence's duty to provide a proper fall protection system, such as a suspended steelcable or proper tie off points independent of the structure being removed. Thus, we find a question offact as to whether St. Lawrence breached its duty pursuant to Labor Law § 240 (1). Resolutionof the foregoing disputed issue also raises an additional question of fact, namely, whether plaintiff'sdecision to tie off his lanyard to the spider itself, rather than affixing a pad eye to the kiln wall, was thesole proximate cause of his accident (seeRobinson v East Med. Ctr., LP, 6 NY3d 550, 555 [2006]; Montgomery v Federal Express Corp., 4NY3d 805, 806 [2005]; Cahill vTriborough Bridge & Tunnel Auth., 4 NY3d 35, 39-40 [2004]; Torres v MazzoneAdmin. Group, Inc., 46 AD3d at 1041; Albert v Williams Lubricants, Inc., 35 AD3d at1117).
The parties' remaining arguments are rendered academic by our determination.
Mercure, J.P., Rose, Kane and Malone Jr., JJ., concur. Ordered that the order is modified, on thelaw, without costs, by reversing so much thereof as granted plaintiffs' motion for partial summaryjudgment; said motion denied; and, as so modified, affirmed. Ordered that the judgment is reversed, onthe law, without costs.
Footnote *: A pad eye, made from a piece ofiron or steel with a hole cut in the middle, is welded to a metal surface for use as a tie off point for asafety harness.