In a decision dated November 18, 2020, the Honorable Carol R. Edmead of the New York County Supreme Court granted our client third-party defendant Fresh Meadow Chiller Services, LLC’s (‘Fresh Meadow”) motion for summary judgment dismissing the third-party action by defendant New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled, Maintaining the Hospital for Special Surgery (“HSS”), including those claims for contractual and common law indemnification, contribution and breach of contract for the failure to procure insurance. HSS owns a hospital located at 535 East 70th Street, New York, New York. Through a Preventative Maintenance Agreement HSS engaged Fresh Meadow to provide maintenance of two large industrial chillers which provided cold water to the MRI machines in the hospital. Plaintiff, a technician employed by Fresh Meadow, alleges that he slipped and fell while descending a ladder from which he cleaned the chiller coils. The Court held that Fresh Meadow demonstrated its entitlement to summary judgment on HSS’s common law indemnification and contribution claims against it because plaintiff did not sustain a grave injury within the meaning of Workers’ Compensation Law Section 11. With regard to HSS’s breach of contract claim against Fresh Meadow, the Court held that the limitation of liability provision of the Preventative Maintenance Agreement did not confer an obligation by Fresh Meadow to procure insurance for HSS’s benefit, but in any event, the policy submitted by Fresh Meadow showed that it procured the insurance it was required to procure. The Court held that HSS failed to demonstrate entitlement to summary judgment on its contractual indemnity claim against Fresh Meadow because there was no language in the Preventative Maintenance Agreement which evinced a clear intent to indemnify HSS. In sum, the Court dismissed the third-party action against Fresh Meadow in its entirety as a matter of law.

Louis Mazzarisi v. New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled, Maintaining the Hospital for Special Surgery, Index No. 155022/2016 (N.Y. Co. Sup. Ct. Nov. 18, 2020)