Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Shirley Werner Kornreich, J.), entered on or about May 31, 2006, which denied plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment as to liability on their causes of action under Labor Law § 240 (1), unanimously affirmed, without costs.
This is an action by plaintiff Dennis Buckley and his wife (suing derivatively) to recover damages for injuries Buckley sustained when he fell from a ladder he was ascending to do welding work on the roof setback of an atrium being renovated at the United States Post Office at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. Defendant J.A. Jones/GMO (J.A. Jones) was the general contractor for the project; Buckley was an employee of nonparty Cross
On this record, Supreme Court correctly denied plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment as to liability under Labor Law § 240 (1). While it is undisputed on appeal that plaintiffs’ moving papers made out a prima facie case for summary judgment as to liability under section 240 (1), the aforementioned incident report—which, contrary to plaintiffs’ assertions, is inconsistent with Buckley’s testimony and White’s affidavit— would, if admitted at trial, raise a triable issue of fact as to whether Buckley’s accident in fact resulted from a violation of the statute. Specifically, J.A. Jones would not be subject to statutory liability if, as the incident report indicates, Buckley simply lost his footing while climbing a properly erected, nondefective A-frame ladder that did not malfunction (see Blake v Neighborhood Hous. Servs. of N.Y. City, 1 NY3d 280, 290 [2003] [affirming verdict for defendant where, although plaintiff was injured while using a ladder, there was “no violation (of Labor Law § 240 [1]) and the worker’s actions . . . (were) the ‘sole proximate cause’ of the accident”]; Weiss v City of New York, 306 AD2d 64, 64 [2003] [affirming denial of plaintiff’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict where the jury could “rationally find” that plaintiff failed to prove that his fall from a ladder was proximately caused by a Labor Law § 240 (1) violation] ; Chan v Bed Bath & Beyond, 284 AD2d 290, 290 [2001] [affirming denial of plaintiffs motion for partial summary judgment as to liability under Labor Law § 240 (1) where plaintiff allegedly told his supervisor that he “slipped off of the ladder”]).
Contrary to plaintiffs’ contentions, the incident report (which plaintiffs do not dispute was prepared in the ordinary course of J.A. Jones’s business) may be admissible as a business record
