| Apel v City of New York |
| 2010 NY Slip Op 03765 [73 AD3d 406] |
| May 4, 2010 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Laurence Apel, Respondent, v City of New York,Appellant. |
—[*1] Kazmierczuk & McGrath, Forest Hills (John P. McGrath of counsel), forrespondent.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Michael D. Stallman, J.), entered October 13,2009, which granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability underLabor Law § 240 (1), unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Plaintiff was injured during efforts to move a barge containing materials for theWilliamsburg Bridge reconstruction project from the Manhattan to the Brooklyn side of thebridge. Moving the barge required that its 80-foot-long rod anchors, known as spuds, be raisedfrom the river bed by a crane and that a three-foot-long, 125-pound steel "keeper pin" be insertedinto the "toggle hole" in each spud to hold the spud upright. As plaintiff and a coworker wereinserting a pin into the hole of one spud, the crane dropped the spud; the pin came up "like aseesaw," "snapping" plaintiff's left arm and "hurling" him across the deck of the barge.
There can be no question that "the harm to plaintiff was the direct consequence of theapplication of the force of gravity to the [spud]" (Runner v New York Stock Exch., Inc., 13 NY3d 599, 604 [2009]),i.e., that the risk to be guarded against "arose from the force of the very heavy object'sunchecked, or insufficiently checked, descent" (id. at 603), and that an adequate safetydevice had not been used to guard against that risk.
Defendant's contention that plaintiff may have been the sole proximate cause of his injuriesis without merit (see Hernandez vBethel United Methodist Church of N.Y., 49 AD3d 251, 252-253 [2008]).Concur—Gonzalez, P.J., Tom, Renwick, DeGrasse and Abdus-Salaam, JJ.
[*2]Motion seeking leave for stay pending appeal denied.