Intoxication of Construction Worker who fell from scaffold suffering personal injury held not admissible and not Sole Proximate Cause of Accident

In Jose Miguel Moran v 200 Varick Street Associates, LLC, et al., 80 A.D.3d 581; 914 N.Y.S.2d 307, The Court granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on his 240(1) cause of action. The plaintiff suffered injury when he fell from a scaffold that lacked proper safety railings. Of particular interest is The Court’s holding regarding intoxication of the injured worker;

“The evidence that the plaintiff was not engaged in a statutorily protected activity or was intoxicated was not admissible (see Zuckerman v City of New York, 49 NY2d 557, 563, 404 N.E.2d 718, 427 N.Y.S.2d 595; Maniscalco v Liro Eng’g Constr. Mgt., 305 A.D.2d 378, 380, 759 N.Y.S.2d 163; Madalinski v Structure-Tone, Inc., 47 AD3d at 688). Moreover, since the scaffold lacked safety railings, the defendant’s alleged intoxication was not the sole proximate cause of his injuries (see Bondanella v Rosenfeld, 298 AD2d 941, 942, 747 N.Y.S.2d 645; Podbielski v KMO-361 Realty Assocs.., 294 A.D.2d 552, 553-554, 742 N.Y.S.2d 664; Sergeant v Murphy Family Trust, 284 AD2d 991, 992, 726 N.Y.S.2d 537).”

The New York Construction Accident Lawyers at Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf have years of experience representing construction workers who have suffered injury in construction accidents in New York.