This page summarizes and comments on a published court decision. It is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case depends on its own facts. Unless this page says otherwise, The Eskesen Law Firm did not represent any party in this case.
Bottom line
Labor Law 240(1), often known as “the Scaffold Law,” may protect a construction worker who is hurt trying to keep a heavy load from falling, even if he never fell and nothing struck him. Here, the First Department affirmed partial summary judgment on liability for a foreman who hurt his back catching a 230-pound beam that slipped from a coworker’s hand, and held that being the foreman did not make him the sole proximate cause of the accident.
The case
- Court
- Appellate Division, First Department
- Decided
- October 13, 2026
- Case
- Mitchell v Pullman SST, Inc.
- Citation
- 2026 NY Slip Op 05912
- Official text
- Read the decision on the New York courts’ official reporter site
The facts
The plaintiff, the supervising foreman, and four coworkers were passing large metal beams up a 14-foot rolling tower used to build sidewalk sheds. He testified that once a coworker on the tower’s seven-foot platform had a secure grip on the fourth beam, he told the other ground worker to let go, as with the first three beams; the beam, then about 4½ feet up, suddenly slipped from the coworker’s hand, and he wrapped his arms around it to keep it from falling onto a pedestrian walkway, injuring his back. The Supreme Court, Bronx County, granted him partial summary judgment on his Labor Law 240(1) claim, and the defendants appealed.
The holding
The First Department unanimously affirmed. It held that the evidence “establishes that although plaintiff neither fell from a height nor was struck by a falling object, his injury was caused by his effort to prevent the beam from falling” (2026 NY Slip Op 05912, *1). Given the beam’s length, weight, and the force its fall could generate, the work did not “merely involve an ordinary danger of working on a construction site” (id.). The sole proximate cause defense failed, because the evidence did not show that his instruction to let go went against company practice (id. at *2).
What changed
Nothing new: this applies settled law, including the court’s earlier decision in Britt v Levgar Equities Corp. (227 AD3d 437).
What it means
- Labor Law 240(1) requires owners and contractors on covered construction work to provide devices such as hoists, ladders, and ropes that give “proper protection” to workers. While most cases under the statute involve a worker who falls or is hit by a falling object, this case helps support the notion that a worker hurt trying to stop a heavy load from falling may also be covered.
- Coworkers’ statements that no beam fell did not create a question of fact, because they did not contradict his account that he was hurt keeping it from falling.
- Being the foreman does not automatically make a worker the sole proximate cause of his own accident; here, his instruction matched how the first three beams were handled.
Our view
Commentary by Frank N. Eskesen. This section is opinion.
For many years, the Court of Appeals described the accidents Labor Law 240(1) covers as falls from a height or being struck by a falling object. That began to shift in 2009, when the Court made clear in Runner v New York Stock Exchange that the object does not have to hit the worker; the question is “whether the harm flows directly from the application of the force of gravity to the object.” Here, we note that the plaintiff grabbed the slipping beam by instinct, to keep it from falling onto a pedestrian walkway. While he was not “struck by” the object, the court did not hold that against him, and in our view, that is the right result. Think of someone who catches a heavy bookcase as it tips toward a child: the danger came from the falling weight, whether or not it ever reached the floor. Sometimes stopping a potentially more serious accident is how an injury happens. We believe two lessons follow. 1. Workers hurt on a construction site should not assume they have no claim just because they did not fall or were not hit. 2. The usual work practice can decide a sole proximate cause defense, so it should be pinned down early.
Topics
Court: First Department. Year: 2026. Statutes: Labor Law § 240(1). Result: affirmed.
Reviewed by Frank N. Eskesen, admitted in New York since 2000. Decided October 13, 2026. Posted October 14, 2026.
Questions about your own accident?
Call us for a free consultation. Calls answered live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.