FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM OCTOBER 18, 2018 • THE QUEENS COURIER 81
THE SHORT TRUCK
Q: I was employed as a police officer. My job was to load a police flatbed
truck with wooden barriers and take the barriers to locations around the city. Jim
and I were positioned on the truck, receiving the barriers that were pushed up
onto the truck by two other officers. The truck was equipped with side railings
that were three feet high. However, there was no railing on the rear of the truck,
and the barriers were longer than the truck’s bed.
While I was standing at the rear of the truck, holding one end of a
wooden barrier with both hands, Jim gave a hard push, causing the barrier’s end
to hit my chest. I fell backwards off the rear of the truck onto the street.
A: General Municipal Law § 205-e permits you to assert a tort claim
against Jim or the police department. To establish a cause of action under section
205-e, you must identify a statute or ordinance that the defendant violated and set
forth those facts from which it may be inferred that the violation caused your
injuries. You must demonstrate injury resulting from negligent noncompliance
with a requirement found in a well-developed body of law and regulation that
imposes clear duties.
For a statute or ordinance that the defendant violated, your attorney
may wish to go with Labor Law § 27-a (3) (a) (1). That statute requires the department
to provide its employees with a work area that is free from recognized
hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to its
employees. If so, he or she will argue that the lack of a rear railing and the failure
to use a longer truck are precisely the kinds of occupational hazards that § 27-a
was designed to redress, and that the police department violated the statute in
failing to follow appropriate safety protocols.
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