Opinion
July 18, 1994
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Bernstein, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, with one bill of costs, and the plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability pursuant to Labor Law § 240 (1) is granted.
In this case, the collapse of a ladder that was not braced or secured in any way was a prima facie violation of Labor Law § 240 (1) (see, Gordon v. Eastern Ry. Supply, 82 N.Y.2d 555; Urrea v Sedgwick Ave. Assocs., 191 A.D.2d 319; Fernandez v. MHP Land Assocs., 188 A.D.2d 417; Place v. Grand Union Co., 184 A.D.2d 817; Bras v. Atlas Constr. Corp., 166 A.D.2d 401; Teska v. Camperlino Fatti Bldrs., 163 A.D.2d 868; La Lima v. Epstein, 143 A.D.2d 886). The City failed to submit evidence in admissible form to rebut this prima facie showing (see, Zuckerman v. City of New York, 49 N.Y.2d 557).
We do not find that the facts surrounding this accident were within the exclusive knowledge of the plaintiffs. The City failed to show what steps it took to obtain a statement from the plaintiff Hugh Bryan's coworker, who was in the same room as Bryan at the time of the accident.
The City's contention that there was discovery pending at the time of the plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment is insufficient to defeat the motion. Allegations of mere hope that the discovery will reveal something helpful to the City's case provide no basis for postponing the determination of the plaintiff's motion (see, Plotkin v. Franklin, 179 A.D.2d 746). Bracken, J.P., Altman, Krausman and Goldstein, JJ., concur.