A chuppah is a canopy having symbolic meaning under which a Jewish couple’s wedding ceremony is performed. In McCoy v. Kirsch, 99 A.D.3d 13 (2012) a florist furnished a chuppah for a wedding at the defendants’ catering facility. It came in a set of disconnected parts—metal pipes 10′ long x 3″ diameter, four steel floor plates, wood and a fabric canopy1—which the florist’s workers assembled for use later in the day. Assembly and later on disassembly of the chuppah by an experienced worker would each take more than a few minutes.
On the morning after the wedding, Samuel McCoy, the florist’s truck driver, and a co-worker came to disassemble the chuppah with parts intact and cart them away for future like usages. Brought for the work was a 6′ aluminum (step) ladder which “allegedly” did not have feet on two of its (unnamed) legs, a pipe wrench, a florist’s knife and wire cutters. Said was that when McCoy was a few minutes into the disassembly, standing on the third rung down from the top of the ladder which was held by the co-worker, the ladder slipped causing him to fall and be injured.
