28 THE QUEENS COURIER • MARCH 29, 2018 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
THE DARK STAIRCASE Q: I was employed by a subcontractor on a heating renovation project. Early
one winter afternoon, while descending a staircase into the basement of the building
where we stored our tools, I fell.
The light at the top of the stairs was on. I could see the bottom of the stairs
from the top. It seemed to get darker and darker as I descended. Maybe I had some
snow blindness from entering the building from outside. I had used the stairs without
a problem many times in the past, including at least two times that day.
My coworker says that he had descended the stairwell on the morning of the
accident. Same as for several months, there was no light bulb in the light fixture at the
bottom of the stairs. He could not tell when he reached the bottom. The only light in
the bottom area was from a room beyond a basement doorway.
A: Section 200 of the Labor Law is a codification of the common-law duty
imposed upon an owner or general contractor to provide you with a safe place to work.
Liability for a violation of section 200 and common-law negligence arises where you
establish that the accident arose from a dangerous condition on the work site and the
defendant had actual or constructive notice of the condition and failed to remedy it
within a reasonable amount of time. Here, the hazardous condition is the lack, or
inadequacy, of lighting in that stairwell.
Section 241 of the Labor Law imposes a nondelegable duty of reasonable
care upon owners and contractors to provide you with reasonable and adequate protection
and safety. To prevail on a section 241 claim, you must demonstrate the violation
of a regulation setting forth a specific standard of conduct applicable to the working
conditions which existed at the time of the accident and that the violation was the
proximate cause. Seemingly, you have a strong section 241 claim premised on 12
NYCRR 23-1.30, a regulation codifying the minimum amount of illumination required
at construction work sites.
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