MKCI Attorneys Robert Connor, Jr. and Angela Ponto recently successfully obtained Summary Judgment for our client in the Supreme Court of New York, Cattaraugus, County. The Plaintiff brought an action under the New York Labor Laws for injuries sustained while employed as a laborer on construction site.
The subject accident occurred when Plaintiff was wheeling debris from the construction site into our clients roll-off dumpster, when he was caused to slip and injure himself. Plaintiff claimed he was unable to work since the accident, nearly seven years ago. Plaintiff brought causes of action against our client for violations of the Labor Law, negligence, and breach of warranty. Our client’s only interaction with the work site was delivering and carting away dumpsters.
We aggressively defended this action throughout discovery. In support of summary judgment we made several arguments to the Court: (1) Plaintiff’s claims under the Labor Law do not apply to Defendant is not a covered entity as L&R Roll-Off was a supplier for the worksite and not the owner or contractor; (2) even if Defendant was a contractor, the Labor Law does not apply as it lacked any supervision, direction, or control over Plaintiff or the worksite; (3) Plaintiff did not bring any claims under Labor Law § 240(1) in either the Complaint or in his Bill of Particulars; (4) even if Plaintiff did, Labor Law § 240 (1) does not apply case as this matter does not involve any “physically significant elevation differential;” (5) Plaintiff’s claims under Labor Law § 200 and common law negligence fail as there was a complete lack of notice of the alleged defect; (6) L&R Roll-Off’s actions were not a proximate cause of the alleged injuries; (7) Plaintiff’s claim under Labor Law §241 (6) must be dismissed as the provisions cited by Plaintiff are not sufficiently specific to support a Labor Law claim and/or are not relevant; (8) Plaintiff’s claims for breach of express and implied warranty fail as to L&R Roll-Off because there was no written contract and the transaction was not for the sale of goods
The Court agreed with all of our positions and granted our motion in its totality dismissing all claims and cross claims against our client. The Court found our client was not a proper party to the Labor Law claims as it was a mere supplier. The Court additionally found our Client lacked any notice of the alleged defects. While all parties in the case filed summary judgment motions, only our motion was granted by the Court.
New York Labor Law actions are notoriously Plaintiff-friendly and involve an element of strict liability. We are happy to have overcome these hurdles to obtain this result on behalf of our clients.
For additional information, please contact:
Robert J. Connor, Jr. – rconnor@mkcilaw.us.com
Angela Ponto – aponto@mkcilaw.us.com
