EISNER v. POSILLICO CIVIL INC (2025)

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Myrna Socorro, J.), entered July 17, 2024, which granted plaintiff's motion seeking summary judgment on his Labor Law §§ 240(1) and 241(6) claims, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Plaintiff's testimony established prima facie that defendants failed to provide a safety device to ensure that the ladder would be stable while plaintiff used it to perform his statutorily covered work.  Plaintiff was not required to show that the ladder itself was defective (Labor Law § 240[1];  see e.g. Sacko v. New York City Hous. Auth., 188 A.D.3d 546, 547, 132 N.Y.S.3d 611 [1st Dept. 2020];  Pierrakeas v. 137 E. 38th St. LLC, 177 A.D.3d 574, 574–575, 114 N.Y.S.3d 318 [1st Dept. 2019]).

In opposition, defendants failed to raise an issue of fact.  That the incident reports defendants prepared described the accident as a fall from ladder, without further details, does not defeat plaintiff's claim (see Ping Lin v. 100 Wall St. Prop., L.L.C., 193 A.D.3d 650, 652, 148 N.Y.S.3d 71 [1st Dept. 2021]).  Defendants’ assertion that it was the “general consensus” of unnamed individuals on site that plaintiff was the cause of his own accident because he was carrying burn blankets and did not maintain three-point contact with the ladder is speculative with no support in the record, and thus insufficient to rebut plaintiff's showing (see Castillo v. TRM Contr. 626, LLC, 211 A.D.3d 430, 431, 180 N.Y.S.3d 97 [1st Dept. 2022]).

Plaintiff's Labor Law § 241(6) claim is academic in light of the grant of partial summary judgment on his Labor Law § 240(1) claim (see e.g. Malan v. FSJ Realty Group II LLC, 213 A.D.3d 541, 542, 185 N.Y.S.3d 5 [1st Dept. 2023];  Howard v. Turner Constr. Co., 134 A.D.3d 523, 524, 21 N.Y.S.3d 251 [1st Dept. 2015]).