It was Fairleigh Dickinson University's duty to inform an electrical worker that the roof over its library had a latent defect and was unsafe to work on, a state appeals court has ruled.

Plaintiff Sonny Cabrera Jr., an employee of KB Electric Services Company Inc., ultimately fell from the roof and sustained injuries, which led to his filing suit against the school. The Hartford Insurance Co. and KB Electric are third-party defendants.

An Appellate Division panel in a per curiam decision reversed a trial judge's ruling that the university had no duty to inform KB Electric, the company it hired to do work on campus, about the dangerous condition of the roof prior to sending Cabrera to change light bulbs there.

"Under the facts here, we disagree and reverse," wrote Judges Douglas M. Fasciale and Stephanie Ann Mitterhoff in the Oct. 8 opinion. "It is undisputed that a dangerous condition existed."

"The landowner's duty includes the obligation of making a reasonable inspection to discover defective and hazardous conditions. Here, defendant knew the dangerous condition existed before the accident," said the judges.

The personal injury case was on appeal from Passaic County Superior Court.

Dennis G. Polizzi of Pitts & Polizzi in Clifton represented Cabrera. Polizzi was not immediately available to comment.

Richard Evan Barber of Haworth Barber & Gerstman in Hackensack, who represented Fairleigh Dickinson University, couldn't be reached for comment.

Cabrera appealed the grant of summary judgment to Fairleigh Dickinson.

According to the decision, Cabrera typically would access the library roof by using a KB bucket truck. From the bucket, he would do his repair work, while wearing a fall-protection harness that was attached to the bucket. But in this instance the suit contends the school interfered with that practice.

After directing Cabrera where to work, the school parked its own truck where the bucket truck needed to be, rendering Cabrera unable to access the roof from the bucket, according to the decision.

As a result, Cabrera used an alternate route to access the roof. While there, he leaned on a balustrade to retrieve pliers that another worker tossed him. He fell when the balustrade gave way at the northeast corner of the library building, according to the decision.

A preaccident report by a university-hired engineer who inspected the area where Cabrera fell stated that the roof's balustrades were not reinforced and lacked any mechanical fasteners and documented other deterioration, the court noted. But the engineer also said the solid piers at each side of the balustrades likely would hold under anticipated normal loads, "except for major seismic activity."

"Indeed, defendant's representative testified that the university repaired the balustrades before the accident," wrote the judges. "Although defendant knew about the latent dangerous condition, and even though defendant prevented plaintiff from accessing the roof using the bucket, defendant remained silent about deteriorating joints, waterproof problems, mismatching caulk, and previous repairs to the top of the rails and facing joints."

"An occupier of land owes a duty to his invitee to use reasonable care to make the premises safe … ," said the panel, citing Olivo v. Owens–Illinois Inc. "And a landowner has 'the duty to provide a reasonably safe working place' for an independent contractor he or she hires,'" the panel wrote.

The court said it understood the university's contention that such duty does not relate to known hazards which are part of, or incidental to, the very work an independent contractor is hired to perform.

But, said the panel, "Here, the dangerous condition did not pertain to an operational hazard that was obvious and visible to plaintiff upon ordinary observation," the opinion said. "It was hidden; only defendant knew about it. And the dangerous condition was not part of or incidental to repairing light bulbs."

The judges noted how the engineer who inspected the roof and verified the solid piers as being stable and substantial was also in the dark.

"Only defendant knew that this was not the case," said the panel. "Reversed."