Morton v. StateMorton v. State
Lead Opinion
OPINION OF THE COURT
Clаimant Alan Morton was injured on the morning of April 3, 1997 while working for his employer, New York Water Service Corporation (the water company), a private company that furnishes water to portions of Nassau County. On that date, he was a member of a four-person work crew, including a foreman, dispatched with a backhoe to fix a break reported in a company-owned water main installed in 1928 beneath Carman Mill Road, Massapequa, New York, a part of the State of New York’s highway system (see Highway Law § 341 [29] [1]).
Upon arrival at the job site, the work crew notified affected customers and shut off water service, excavated test holes to pinpoint the leak’s origin, and рlaced traffic cones to alert motorists to the presence of the backhoe, which occupied a portion of the northbound travel lane. Using the backhoe and shovels, the crew dug up blacktop in the roadbed and created a hole or trench, exposing the 12-inch water main buried several feet underground. When claimant climbed down into this trench to clean around the main and apply a repair clamp, a side wall caved in, burying his right leg and foot.
The State argued that it was not liable under Labor Law § 241 (6) because the water company failed to obtain a work permit from the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT), as mandated by Highway Law § 52, prior to repairing the water main, which was situated within the state highway right-of-way. Section 52 provides that
“[e]xcept in connеction with the construction, reconstruction, maintenance or improvement of a state highway, no person, firm, corporation, municipality, or state department or agency shall . . . lay or maintain [within the state highway right-of-way] underground wires or conduits or drainage, sewer or water pipes, except in accordance with the terms and conditions of a work permit issued by the commissioner of transportation” (see also Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1220-c [“(e)xcept in connection with the construction, reconstruction, maintenance, or improvement of a state highway, no person shall work on a state highway without a work permit issued by the state commissioner of transportation”]; 17 NYCRR 126.2 [a], [b] [a work permit must be secured “to temporarily obstruct or to install, construct, maintain or operate any facilities within the bounds of a State highway right-of-way,” including “excavating ... or work of a like nature under, or over or along the highway”]).
By decision and order dated October 21, 2002, the Court of Claims dismissed claimant’s negligence claims because the State lacked actual or constructive notice of any dangerous condition and did not exercise supervision or control over the work site. The court also denied claimant’s motion and the State’s cross
After the ensuing nonjury trial, the Court of Claims on April 9, 2003 found that the excavation was not protected by sloped or banked sides or by sheeting, shoring or bracing, and that it was more than five feet deep. The judge decided that claimant had therefore proven violations of sections of the Industrial Code specific enough to support Labor Law § 241 (6) liability; and that these violations proximately caused the accident, and thus contravened the State’s nondelegable duty to claimant under Labor Law § 241 (6). The judge also found that the State had not proven claimant’s comparative negligence by a preponderance of the credible evidence. Accordingly, on May 7, 2003, an interlocutory judgment determining the State to be negligent and 100% liable for claimant’s injuries was entered in the Court of Claims. The State appealеd from both the order denying its cross motion for summary judgment on the section 241 (6) claim and the interlocutory judgment.
In December 2004, the Appellate Division dismissed the State’s appeal from the interlocutory judgment as academic; reversed, on the law, the portion of the Court of Claims’ order that denied the State’s cross motion for summary judgment dismissing the section 241 (6) claim; granted the State summary judgment on and dismissed that claim; and vacated the interlocutory judgment (
“State is not liable . . . under Labor Law § 241 (6) because the claimant was not within the class of persons afforded protection under the statute. Since [the water company] failed to obtain a highway work permit in violation of state lаw . . . [the water company] and the claimant trespassed on the State’s*55 property in performing excavation and repairs on the state highway . . . Since the claimant was performing work without the State’s permission or knowledge, he was not a person ‘employed’ at a work site within the meaning of the Labor Law, which defines such an individual as one ‘permitted or suffered to work’ (Labor Law § 2 [7])” (13 AD3d at 500 [citations omitted]).
We granted claimant permission to appeal (
Labor Law § 241 (6) provides that
“[a]ll contractors and owners and their agents . . . , when constructing or demolishing buildings or doing any excavating in connection therewith, shall comply with the following requirements: . . .
“All areas in which construction, excavation or demolition work is being performed shall be so constructed, shored, equiрped, guarded, arranged, operated and conducted as to provide reasonable and adequate protection and safety to the persons employed therein or lawfully frequenting such places. The [New York State Commissioner of Labor] may make rules to carry into effect the provisions of this subdivision, and the owners and contractors and their agents for such work . . . shall comply therewith.”
Thus, Labor Law § 241 (6) imposes a nondelegable duty
We found no nexus in Abbatiello where the plaintiff, a cable television repairman, was injured at a building owned by the defendant while responding to the complaint of a tenant who was a cable television subscriber. The plaintiffs employer had sent the plaintiff to the defendant’s building to respond to the complaint. We emphasized that the “injured plaintiff was on the owner’s premises not by reason of any action of the owner but by reason of provisions of the Public Service Law,” which precludes landlords from interfering with the installation of cable television facilities on their property (Abbatiello,
“but for Public Service Law § 228, plaintiff would be a trespasser upon [the defendant’s] property and [the defendant] would neither owe a duty to plaintiff nor incur liability. Any permission to work on the premises was granted upon compulsion and no relationship existed between [the defendant] and [the plaintiffs employer] or the plaintiff’ (id.).
We contrasted Abbatiello with three earlier cases in which there was a nexus between the owner and the injured worker: Celestine v City of New York (
We next applied the nexus test in Sanatass v Consolidated Inv. Co., Inc. (
Scaparo is our most recent decision discussing the nexus prerequisite. There, the injured plaintiffs, employees of the Village of Frankfort, were connecting a sewer lateral from a newly constructed cemetery chapel owned by a church to the sewer main at a street intersection in the village (see
“althоugh the accident occurred on HCIDA’s property, HCIDA did not contract with the Village of Frankfort to have the sewer lateral installed, it had no choice but to allow the Village to enter its property pursuant to a right-of-way, and it did not grant the Village an easement or other property interest creating the right-of-way” (Scaparo,13 NY3d at 866 ).
Here, there was no lease agreement or grant of an easement or other property interest creating a nexus between claimant and the State. Claimant was performing excavation work on the State’s premises “not by reason of any action of the [State] but by reason” of the water company’s obligation tо repair a break in its water line (Abbatiello,
Claimant also urges that he “did not simply trespass on another’s property,” and tags the statutory requirement for a highway work permit as “[a] mere formality.” But we have recognized that the “terms and conditions [of these permits] аre not meaningless or optional; the permitee agrees to abide by them in order to obtain DOT’s permission to work in the highway right-of-way” (Brothers,
Finally, claimant suggests that a highway work permit may not have been necessary here because of the “emergency situation.” DOT’s regulations, however, make clear that the water company was required to have in hand either a job-specific or an annual permit before undertaking excavation of the roadway, notwithstanding any exigency (see 17 NYCRR 126.2, 129.1). There are simply different requirements for notifying DOT, depending on whether or not an emergency exists (compare 17 NYCRR 129.3 [a] [1] with 17 NYCRR 129.3 [a] [2]; see also 17 NYCRR 126.6 [specifying instructions to obtain highway work permits that apply to, among other things, “emergency repairs and public utilities”]). Additionally, even if it were true that the water company was entitled to enter the state highway right-of-way without a work permit in order to make emergency repairs, the State still would not be liable. In that circumstance, “[a]ny permission to work on the premises [would have been] granted upon compulsion and no relationship [would have] existed between [the State] and [the water company] or [claimant]” (Abbatiello,
The outcome of this case would be different—as the State concedes—if the water company had secured a highway work
Although acknowledging that we have always “required as a condition of owner liability [under Labor Law § 241 (6)] no more than some connection, or ‘nexus,’ between the owner and the plaintiff,” the dissent never suggests how this minimal standard was met—i.e., what the nexus might have been—in this case (dissenting op at 63; cf. n 4 at 58). All wе are told is that “[tjhere is ... no issue ... as to whether” this unspecified nexus “was attenuated by out-of-possession status” as was purportedly the question in Sanatass (dissenting op at 64). Of course, in Sanatass there was a clear nexus—a lease—and the issue, as we articulated it, was not whether this nexus was “attenuated by [the landlord’s] out-of-possession status,” but whether it had been “sever[ed]” by the tenant’s breach of a clause in the lease prohibiting the hiring of a contractor to make alterations in the premises without the landlord’s written prior consent (see Sanatass,
Under the dissent’s apparent analysis of our prior cases, a property owner who did nоt contract for the injury-inducing work is liable under Labor Law § 241 (6) unless the plaintiffs employer’s entry onto the premises results from compulsion— i.e., permission unrelated to a lease, easement or some other property interest granted by the owner. This is certainly contrary to the way in which we have consistently explained and reconciled our precedents, and effectively eliminates the nexus requirement. More to the point, there is no reason to believe that this is what the Legislature intended. Indeed, such a liability scheme would do away with any motive or means for a property owner “to assure that only financially responsible and safety-conscious subcontractors аre engaged so that a high standard of care might be maintained throughout the entire construction site”; and to “furnish[ ] an additional incentive to both insurer and insured to maintain safety standards necessary to avoid increased exposure to liability” (Allen v Cloutier Constr. Corp.,
Notes
. Claimant first moved for leave to appeal in 2005. We dismissed that motion for lack of finality because his claim under Labor Law § 240 remained pending in the lawsuit (
. As we noted in Brothers v New York State Elec. & Gas Corp. (
. Like Labor Law § 241 (6), Labor Law § 240 (1) imposes a nondelegable duty on owners.
. Claimant articulates the nexus that he asserts in this case as follows: “At bar, the nexus between claimant’s work and the State’s ownership is clear—the emergency situation blocked traffic and the road was buckling, and the State had a non-delegable duty to maintain the road; [the water company’s] work was designed to assist the State.” In fact, the water company did not repair the leak to help the State maintain its roadway; its repairs simply eliminated or mitigated damages otherwise owing the State for the harm to State-owned property caused by the leak, which the water company was obligated to fix to maintain service to its customers.
. For some unexplained reason, the water company purchased protective liability insurance naming DOT as an additional insured, which was in force at the time of claimant’s accident, even though there was no job-specific or annual work permit requiring it. Although the State impleaded the insurance carrier after learning about the policy during discovery, the Court of Claims dismissed the third-party complaint for failure to prоvide the insurer with timely notice of the claim.
Dissenting Opinion
Claimant Alan Morton was injured when, after being “dispatched” by his water company employer to the site of a broken water main located beneath a State-owned roadway, the unshored sides of the area excavated to facilitate the repair fell upon him. He sought to recover for his injuries pursuant to Labor Law § 241 (6), and in the ensuing litigation established that his injuries were attributable to a violation of that statute’s requirement that “[a]ll areas in which construction, excavation or demolition work is being performed shall be so constructed, shored, equipped, guarded, arranged, operated and conducted as tо provide reasonable and adequate protection and safety to the persons employed therein.” He is now told, however, that he may not recover because the party against whom recovery is sought—and, indeed, the only party potentially answerable in damages under the present circumstances—the State, had not given permission for the repair. It is not disputed that the State would otherwise be statutorily liable by reason of its ownership of the accident site.
The question, then, is whether the failure of claimant’s employer to obtain permission should operate to deprive claimant of the remedy the Legislature has provided in enacting Labor Law § 241
“to achieve the purpose of protecting workers by placing ‘ultimate responsibility for safety practices at building construction jobs where such responsibility actually belongs, on the owner and general contractor’ (1969 NY Legis Ann, at 407), instead of on workers, who ‘are scarcely in a position to protect themselves from accident’ (Koenig v Patrick Constr. Corp.,298 NY 313 , 318)” (Zimmer v Chemung County Performing Arts,65 NY2d 513 , 520 [1985]).
Because the strict liability statute at issue nowhere conditions an owner’s liability upon consent to the injury producing work, and because we have expressly held that an owner may not avoid responsibility under the strict liability provisions of the Labor Law by interpolating such a requirement as a condition of recovеry, I respectfully dissent.
The strict liability provisions of the Labor Law, sections 240 and 241, do not contain any provision conditioning the liability
Abbatiello v Lancaster Studio Assoc. (
“Lancaster [the owner] cannot be charged with the duty of providing the safe working conditions contemplated by Labor Law § 240 (1) for cable television repair people of whom it is wholly unaware. Supreme Court correctly noted that, but for Public Service Law § 228, plaintiff would be a trespasser upon Lancaster’s property and Lancaster would neither owe a duty to plaintiff nor incur liability. Any permission to work on the premises was granted upon compulsion and no relationship existed between Lancaster and Paragon or the plaintiff’ (id. at 52).
After Abbatiello, there was some belief that an owner’s knowledge of and permission for the work in the course of which the sued upon injuries were sustained were generally necessary conditions of owner liability under the Labor Law’s strict liability statutes (see e.g. Sanatass v Consolidated Inv. Co., Inc.,
“our precedents make clear that so long as a violation of the statute proximately results in injury, the owner’s lack of notice or control over the work is not conclusive—this is precisely what is meant by absolute or strict liability in this context. We have made perfectly plain that even the lack of ‘any ability’ on the owner’s part to ensure compliance with the statute is legally irrelevant (see Coleman,91 NY2d at 823 )” (10 NY3d at 340 [citation omitted]).
We at the same time clarified that Abbatiello, properly understood in light of the governing statutes, their often acknowledged protective purposes and our consistent precedents, required as a condition of owner liability no more than some connection, or “nexus,” between the owner and the plaintiff (id. at 341).
While we had noted in Abbatiello that the required nexus might be supplied by the circumstance that an out-of-possession owner had granted a property interest in the premises to the party who had afforded the consequently injured worker access, our decision in Abbatiello turned not upon the absence of a connective property interest, or even upon the absence of permission, but upon the legal incapacity of the owner to withhold access for the injury producing work (
Our decision in Sanatass, by contrast, addressed the situation only hypothetically adverted to in Abbatiello—whether an out-of-possession owner “by a lease agreement or grant of an easement, or other property interest” (Abbatiello,
The majority now, ignoring the crucial distinction made in Sanatass, equates nexus with permission and, in so doing, affords the nexus requirement a dimension incompatible with the strict liability provisions at issue and their remedial purpose.
There is, of course, no issue in this case as to whether defendant’s nexus to the work site and claimant was attenuated by out-of-possession status; defendant owned and was in possession of the roadway where the accident took place. The only remaining nexus issue, then, if Abbatiello and its progeny are to be followed, is whether defendant’s ownership interest in the work site was rendered nugatory by some countervailing legal compulsion effectively divesting defendant of its right to exclude claimant’s employer from its premises. Obviously, there was no such compulsion. It is, to the contrary, defendant State’s strenuous contention that, pursuant to Highway Law § 52, access for the work performed by claimant’s employer was legally contingent upon defendant’s issuance of a permit. This provision in the owner’s favor, like the lease provision in Sanatass, may well have been violated by the worker’s unpermitted access of the property, but there is no reason why this defendant any inore than the defendant in Sanatass should therefore avoid the responsibilities of ownership under the Labor Law.
Labeling claimant a “trespasser”—one whose presence on the premises was not permitted—is only another way of importing into the Labor Law a coverage condition of owner permission at variance with the statutory scheme. What is relevant is, rather, whether the worker is “employed” to do work otherwise falling within the statutory coverage criteria (see Labor Law § 241 [6]). There is no question that claimant was legitimately employed to do the very work he was doing at the time of his injury, or that he was present upon defendant’s roadway at the direction of his employer, or that defendant, although empowered to deny access, did not. That defendant may have been unable to exercise its power to do so by reason of the water company’s failure to seek a permit for the work cannot be determinative of claimant’s
The Court does today precisely what it said would be impermissible in Sanatass: it has permitted an owner to “en-graft” onto the Labor Law a limitation upon the law’s coverage at odds with the statutory scheme (see Sanatass,
Pervading the majority opinion is the very basic misunderstanding, nowhere encouraged in the governing statute or our case law, that in every strict liability Labor Law action “nexus” must be separately demonstrated as an element of the claim. This has never been true. Ordinarily, all that is necessary to dеmonstrate the liability of an “owner” under the subject provisions is a showing of a statutory violation and causation. Ownership itself ordinarily suffices to establish any connection with the property and the work upon it necessary to sustain liability. An additional showing of connection has only been deemed necessary where an owner is out-of-possession
Strict liability statutes invariably produce some harsh outcomes, but that is not a reason to deny them effect. The Legislature has determined to impose extensive duties upon owners to assure worker safety and provide reliable recourse in the event of construction related injury. Plainly, defendant was not at fault in connection with claimant’s harm; it was held accountable simply by reason of its ownership of the premises where the accident occurred. Owners, however, are not helpless to protect themselves from the exposure created by the Labor Law. They can purchase insurance to guard against the risk of statutory liability, and can require contractors to do the same and name them as additional insureds.
Judgment appealed from and order of the Appellate Division brought up for review affirmed, with costs.
. Indeed, it appears from the trial testimony that a permit would have routinely issued.
. While in our affirming memorandum in Scaparo we without explanation glossed “out-of-possession” as without contractual relationship (13 NY3d
. Defendant, presumably not out of any charitable impulse on the part of the water company, was, in fact, named as additional insured in the water company’s liability policy. While the State, and now the majority, suggests that defendant’s failure to realize the benefit of that coverage in this case is attributable to the water company’s noncompliance with the state permitting law, the suggestion is belied by express findings in the underlying insurance litigation that the State failed to make reasonable efforts to ascertain the existence of such coverage and unreasonably delayed in filing a claim, even after it had learned of the coverage.