This article revisits an issue that was addressed in these pages in May 2014. Brian J. Shoot, “Falling Object Liability: ‘For The Purposes Of The Undertaking,’” NYLJ, May 14, 2014. The issue concerns “falling object” liability and what, precisely, qualifies as an object that “requires securing for the purposes of the undertaking.” Since my last article on the subject, the Appellate Divisions for the First and Second Departments have continued to interpret the phrase quite differently.
Court of Appeals’ Rulings
Labor Law §240, the so-called scaffold statute, has been construed to apply only to elevation-related accidents. Rocovich v. Consolidated Edison Co., 78 NY2d 509 [1991]. One kind of accident to which the statute may apply is the so-called “falling object” accident in which a worker is struck by an object that fell from a height. Wilinski v. 334 East Housing Dev. Fund Corp., 18 NY3d 1 [2011]. Yet, “‘not every object that falls on a worker, gives rise to the extraordinary protections of Labor Law §240(1).’” Toefer v. Long Island R.R., 4 NY3d 399, 407 [2005], quoting Narducci v. Manhasset Bay Assoc., 96 NY2d 259, 267 [2001]. The problem is distinguishing those “falling object” accidents that come within the statute’s scope from those that do not.
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