Blake v. NEIGHBORHOOD HOUS.

• Decision Date: 23 December 2003
• Citation: 1 N.Y.3d 280,771 N.Y.S.2d 484,803 N.E.2d 757
• Parties: RUPERT BLAKE et al., Appellants, v. NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING SERVICES OF NEW YORK CITY, INC., Respondent.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

1 N.Y.3d 280

803 N.E.2d 757

771 N.Y.S.2d 484

RUPERT BLAKE et al., Appellants, v. NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING SERVICES OF NEW YORK CITY, INC., Respondent.

Court of Appeals of the State of New York.

Argued November 19, 2003.

Decided December 23, 2003.

Kelner & Kelner, New York City (Gail S. Kelner of counsel), for appellants.

Carol R. Finocchio, New York City, Lisa M. Comeau and Law Office of Patrick Colligan for respondent. Andrew Zajac, Jericho, Michael J. Caulfield, Dawn C. DeSimone, Elizabeth Anne Bannon and Kathleen D. Foley for Defense Association of New York City, Inc., amicus curiae.

Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo, New York City (Brian J. Shoot of counsel), and Nancy Kramer for New York State Trial Lawyers Association, amicus curiae.

Chief Judge KAYE and Judges G.B. SMITH, CIPARICK, GRAFFEO and READ concur.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ROSENBLATT, J.

We are presented with the question whether a plaintiff who was injured while using a ladder may prevail in a Labor Law § 240 (1) action even when a jury finds that the ladder was so constructed and operated as to give him proper protection and he was the sole cause of his injury. In deciding the appeal, it is necessary for us to address the concept of strict (or absolute) liability and the predicates for its application under Labor Law § 240 (1).

At the time of the injury, plaintiff operated his own contracting company, and was working alone on a renovation job at a two-family house in the Bronx. Defendant Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City (NHS), a not-for-profit lender, provided low-interest financing to facilitate the project. Acting on the homeowner's application, NHS dispatched a rehabilitation specialist to the premises to assess the scope of the work and the amount of the loan. NHS prepared a work estimate and gave the homeowner a list of contractors, from which she chose plaintiff. At the job site, plaintiff set up an extension ladder, which he owned and used frequently. He acknowledged that the ladder was steady, had rubber shoes and was in proper working condition. When plaintiff began scraping rust from a window, however, the upper portion of the ladder retracted and he suffered an ankle injury.

Plaintiff sued the homeowner and NHS alleging a violation of Labor Law § 240 (1). All parties moved for summary judgment. Plaintiff contended that NHS was strictly liable as a statutory agent under the section for having failed to provide a proper workplace and mandated safety equipment. In his deposition, however, plaintiff stated that the ladder was securely placed and not broken or defective. He also said there was no need to have anyone hold the ladder while he was using or ascending it. NHS cross-moved, asserting it could not be liable because it was not a general contractor or agent within the meaning of the Labor Law and did not direct, control or supervise the method or manner of plaintiff's work. It challenged plaintiff's section 240 (1) claim as conclusory, citing the lack of any evidence as to the alleged deficiency of the ladder or work site. NHS also claimed that plaintiff's actions alone caused the injury. Owing to the statutory exclusion,¹ Supreme Court granted the homeowner's motion but denied NHS summary judgment, concluding there were questions of fact as to whether NHS directed or controlled the work. The court also denied plaintiff's motion as to liability under Labor Law § 240 (1). The Appellate Division affirmed (262 AD2d 244 [1st Dept 1999]).

At trial, plaintiff again conceded that he could not identify a defect in the ladder, that it was stable and there was no reason to have it steadied during use. He also revealed that he was not sure if he had locked the extension clips in place before ascending the rungs. At the close of the case, the court asked the jury to indicate on the verdict sheet whether NHS had "the authority to direct, supervise and control Mr. Blake's work" at the residence. The jury answered yes. In response to the second inquiry ("Was the ladder being used by plaintiff Rupert Blake so constructed, operated as to give proper protection to plaintiff?"), the jury again said yes, leading to the inescapable conclusion that the accident happened not because the ladder malfunctioned or was defective or improperly placed, but solely because of plaintiff's own negligence in the way he used it.

The trial court denied plaintiff's motion to vacate the jury's verdict and direct one in his favor. The Appellate Division affirmed, stating that "a factual issue was posed as to whether plaintiff's injury was caused by some inadequacy of the ladder or was solely attributable to the manner in which plaintiff used the ladder" and that there were no grounds to disturb the jury's factual determinations (301 AD2d 366, 367 [2003]). We affirm.

Plaintiff claims that Labor Law § 240 (1) is a strict (or absolute) liability statute and that the court should have set aside the jury's verdict. In reviewing our scaffold law jurisprudence, several themes are relevant to this case, including the statute's history and purpose and plaintiff's claims relating to strict or absolute liability. We also address the issue of plaintiff's actions being the sole proximate cause of the accident and whether NHS can be held liable as an agent under the statute.

A. THE HISTORY AND PURPOSE OF LABOR LAW § 240 (1)

The first scaffold law, an ancestor of our Labor Law § 240 (1), was enacted 118 years ago, in response to the Legislature's concern over unsafe conditions that beset employees who worked at heights (see L 1885, ch 314). In promulgating the statute, the lawmakers reacted to widespread accounts of deaths and injuries in the construction trades. Newspapers carried articles attesting to the frequency of injuries caused by rickety and defective scaffolds. In 1885 alone, there were several articles detailing both the extent of these accidents and the legislation directed at the problem.²

The lawmakers enacted the 1885 statute when personal injury suits of this type were based on common-law duties of a master to a servant (see e.g. Vosburgh v Lake Shore & Mich. S. Ry. Co., 94 NY 374 [1884]; Devlin v Smith, 89 NY 470 [1882]). For that reason, the Legislature aimed this first scaffold law ("AN ACT for the protection of life and limb") at "[a] person employing or directing another." (L 1885, ch 314, § 1.) Although the statute's wording has evolved, the original, core language is still with us. The Legislature eventually added other devices,³ but the first statute contained the very words "scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders" still found in Labor Law § 240 (1). Moreover, the law covered, as it does today, "erection, repairing, altering or painting" of structures. Most tellingly, the lawmakers fashioned this pioneer legislation to "give proper protection" to the worker. Those words are at the heart of the statute and have endured through every amendment.

Even though the first scaffold law exposed violators to civil and criminal responsibility, it fell short of the mark because the employer could escape liability by blaming the employee's coworkers (see e.g. Kimmer v Weber, 151 NY 417, 421 [1897]; Butler v Townsend, 126 NY 105, 111 [1891]). This was changed with an 1897 amendment to the scaffold law, as part of a larger Labor Law initiative dealing with factories, bakeries, tenement-made articles, and the employment of women and children (see L 1897, ch 415, § 18).⁴ The amendment did two things: it placed the onus directly on the employer, and it prompted our Court to interpret the law as creating a presumption of employer liability when a scaffold (or ladder) collapses. We recognized that sound scaffolds and ladders do not simply break apart (see Stewart v Ferguson, 164 NY 553 [1900]). The Legislature looked to employers (and later, contractors and owners) as the entities best able to control the workplace and provide for its safety, casting them in liability for their failure to obey the law.⁵ The objective was—and still is—to force owners and contractors to provide a safe workplace, under pain of damages.

The 1897 statute⁶ was a giant step forward, but it still left employers free to invoke the plaintiff's contributory negligence (see Gombert v McKay, 201 NY 27, 31 [1911]; see also L 1910, ch 352). Indeed, throughout all the scaffold law's amendments, including the present section 240 (1), the statutory language has never explicitly barred contributory negligence as a defense. Our Court, however, did so in 1948, reasoning that the statute should be interpreted that way if it is to meet its objective (see Koenig v Patrick Constr. Corp., 298 NY 313, 316-317 [1948]). Since then we have steadfastly held that contributory negligence will not exonerate a defendant who has violated the statute and proximately caused a plaintiff's injury (see e.g. Zimmer v Chemung County Performing Arts, 65 NY2d 513, 521 [1985]

; Stolt v General Foods Corp., 81 NY2d 918 [1993]). At no time, however, did the Court or the Legislature ever suggest that a defendant should be treated as an insurer after having furnished a safe workplace. The point of Labor Law § 240 (1) is to compel contractors and owners to comply with the law, not to penalize them when they have done so.

B. STRICT (OR ABSOLUTE) LIABILITY

Plaintiff asserts, in essence, that despite the jury's findings he is entitled to recover because Labor Law § 240 (1) provides for strict (or absolute) liability. In addressing this contention, we note that the words strict or absolute liability do not appear in Labor Law § 240 (1) or any of its predecessors. Indeed, it was the Court—and not the Legislature—that began to use this terminology in 1923 (under an earlier version of the statute [see L 1921, ch 50]), holding that employers had an "absolute duty" to furnish safe scaffolding and would be liable when they failed to do so and injury resulted (Maleeny v Standard Shipbuilding Corp., 237 NY 250, 253 [1923]; ...