Carney v. Allied Craftsmen Gen. Contractors

In this case, the Appellate Division, Third Department held that the plaintiff’s evidence demonstrating that the general contractor made brief visits to worksite to make sure that subcontractor had enough materials and its general oversight over the project was insufficient to raise a triable issue of fact on the subcontractor’s summary judgment motion on the Labor Law § 200 claim. The general contractor had hired the plaintiff’s employer to provide framing for a house. The plaintiff was injured when he and two other workers were raising the house’s outside wall.

The Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the general contractor conceded that it would have stopped his employer if the general contractor had witnessed unsafe practices. It held that the general contractor did not supervise or direct the “means or methods” of the subcontractor’s (the plaintiff’s employer’s) work and, therefore, was not liable under § 200. The Court stated, “an essential precondition to liability under either common-law negligence or Labor Law § 200 is the authority to control the activity bringing about the injury.”