The Court of Appeals’ recent decision in Rodriguez v. NYC, 2018 NY Slip Op 02287, *5 (2018) resolves a decades-old controversy and makes clear that a moving plaintiff need not prove his or her own lack of comparative fault in order to be granted partial summary judgment on liability. Although Rodriguez was decided in a general negligence context, it is argued here that no area of the law will feel its impact more than construction accident cases, particularly those involving a violation of Labor Law §241(6).
Rodriguez’s application to §241(6) cases is even more straightforward than the general negligence setting in which it was decided. It is well settled that a §241(6) plaintiff establishes liability against statutory owners and contractors by proving that plaintiff’s accident was caused by a job site violation of a specific section of Part 23 of the New York State Industrial Code. Misicki v. Caradonna, 12 N.Y.3d 511 (2009); Velasquez v. 795 Columbus, 103 A.D.3d 541, 959 N.Y.S.2d 491 (1st Dept. 2013). Part 23 sets forth concrete rules for owners, contractors and their agents to follow, and practitioners should use pre-trial discovery to adduce evidence establishing the factual violation of those rules. Unlike general negligence standards which by nature lend themselves to interpretation, Part 23 and its case progeny provides litigants with a clear road map as to what is and is not a violation and, by extension, as to when a plaintiff is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Following Rodriguez, once the moving plaintiff has established that the defendant violated one of the Part 23 rules, the defendant must be held liable as a matter of law and any issues of comparative fault are to be left to the jury and resolved in accordance with CPLR Article 14.
