KLUTTZ v. CITRON

Attorney(s) appearing for the Case

William T. Gallagher for appellant.

Robert Lee Moore, Irving J. Neimark and Norman R. Roskin for respondent.

FULD, VAN VOORHIS and BURKE, JJ., concur with DYE, J.; CONWAY, Ch. J., DESMOND and FROESSEL, JJ., dissent and vote to affirm, with costs, and to direct judgment in favor of plaintiff on the stipulation, with the following memorandum: Defendant, employing plaintiff to paint defendant's house, was, under section 240 of the Labor Law, absolutely liable for any injury to plaintiff resulting from the furnishing by defendant to plaintiff of an unsafe ladder. It is conceded that defendant did furnish the ladder, a defective rung of which caused plaintiff's injury. Thus, it was most serious and prejudicial error, properly excepted to, for the trial court repeatedly to charge the jury that defendant would be liable under section 240 of the Labor Law () only if defendant actually supervised the doing of the work. There is no such requirement in the statute and the word "directing" in the first sentence thereof means not supervision but procuring another to do the work (see Iacono v. Frank & Frank Contr. Co., 259 N.Y. 377, 382). The fact that plaintiff cut a piece from the ladder furnished by defendant has nothing whatever to do with the case since that cutting was in no sense the cause of or related to the accident.