First Department Rejects De Minimis Defense, Grants Summary Judgment for Worker’s Fall Under Labor Law 240(1)

November 2, 2025

Palumbo v. Citigroup Tech., Inc., 2025 NY Slip Op 04298, July 24, 2025 – The First Department has held that a fall from a height of 10 ½ to 20 inches is not a bar to summary judgment because the height differential is not, as a matter of law, de minimus. In this case, the plaintiff fell while he was standing on a stack of two pallets in order to use an elevated wet saw when his foot broke through a slab and he fell….
By: Marshall Dennehey

First Department Rejects De Minimis Defense, Grants Summary Judgment for Worker’s Fall Under Labor Law 240(1)

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