Opinion
May 13, 1996
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Posner, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with one bill of costs.
Labor Law § 200 (1) codifies the common law duty of a landowner and a general contractor to provide construction site workers with a safe work place ( see, Comes v. New York State Elec. Gas Corp., 82 N.Y.2d 876, 877; Ross v. Curtis-Palmer Hydro-Elec. Co., 81 N.Y.2d 494, 500). Here, the injured plaintiff admitted in deposition testimony that he did not actually see what caused a construction form to fall on him, but speculated that the accident happened because one of his coworkers had placed the form against an improperly constructed scaffold that moved when another one of his coworkers jumped on it. Under these circumstances, the allegedly dangerous condition was created by the subcontractor's methods. It has not been shown that the defendant, who owned the construction site, exercised supervisory control over the manner in which the work was performed ( see, Ross v. Curtis-Palmer Hydro-Elec. Co., supra; Lombardi v. Stout, 80 N.Y.2d 290, 295). In addition, there was no showing that the defendant had actual or constructive notice of the defective condition ( see, Mantovi v. Nico Constr. Co., 217 A.D.2d 650; Kennedy v. McKay, 86 A.D.2d 597, 598).
The Supreme Court properly concluded that the plaintiffs' allegations were insufficient, as a matter of law, to establish a right to recover. Therefore further discovery was unwarranted ( see, Apodaca v. Pine Glen Dev. Corp., 209 A.D.2d 656; Jones v Gameray, 153 A.D.2d 550, 551). Miller, J.P., O'Brien, Copertino and Pizzuto, JJ., concur.