1250 Broadway, 27th Floor New York, NY 10001

... LEAPING OFF A BUILDING IN A SINGLE BOUND!

Most people would call Max Lopez a hero for risking his own life to save others. Yet, for some reason, the New York County Supreme Court didn't see it the same way.

In Lopez v. Boston Properties Inc. , Mr. Lopez was working on the seventh floor of a construction site where, during the course of the day, a colleague on the ground would hoist buckets of bolts, nuts, and washers up to Lopez by way of a pulley system.

Lopez was injured when his coworker, who thought that the bucket was being unloaded, let go of the rope. Knowing that the pulley system lacked an emergency brake, and that the bucket would fall and injure those in its path, Lopez reached for the 200 pound overloaded bucket, lost his footing, fell some six to eight feet, and sustained various spinal injuries.  (A safety line abruptly halted Lopez's decent.)

The New York County Supreme Court granted Boston Properties' motion for summary judgment and dismissed the personal injury case, finding Lopez's election to leap off the building was the sole cause of his injuries.

On appeal, the Appellate Division, First Department, disagreed. It correctly concluded that Lopez was reaching for the bucket rather than propelling himself off the structure.

Under New York's Labor Law, not only are construction contractors required to furnish safety devices to their employees, but the offered protections must be reasonable and adequate.

The AD1 held that the safety line which prevented Lopez from falling to his death did not prevent a recovery by him because the device "proved inadequate to shield [Lopez] from gravity-related injuries."

The appellate court reasoned that "the risk that an elevated worker might become injured while trying to save a coworker below from injury is not so unforeseeable as to be a superseding cause."

The AD1 reinstated Lopez's claims, holding that issues of fact -- including the degree to which Lopez's actions may have contributed to the accident -- precluded an award of summary judgment in anyone's favor. In other words, the case will proceed to trial and a judge or jury will determine the amount of any recovery.

That's the nuts and bolts of it.

For a copy of the following Appellate Division's decision, please use this link: Lopez v. Boston Properties Inc.

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