Opinion
July 28, 1986
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Westchester County (Donovan, J.).
Order reversed, on the law, without costs or disbursements, motion granted, and complaint dismissed.
The plaintiff Thomas Sofia was injured when he fell from a scaffold that his employer, the third-party defendant, had borrowed from the defendant. Although the record suggests that the absence of safety railings may have contributed to the happening of the accident, there is no evidence that the defendant was anything but a bailor of the scaffold in disassembled form.
A gratuitous bailor may be under a duty to warn of a defect or hazard of which it has actual knowledge (see, Daoust v Palmenteri, 109 A.D.2d 774; Galbraith v Pike Son, 18 A.D.2d 39; 9 N.Y. Jur 2d, Bailments and Chattel Leases, § 76, at 88-89). However, liability may not rest upon a theory that a supplier of a chattel owes a duty, extending to all foreseeable users, of reasonable care in furnishing safe chattels where the alleged defect is patent (Sarnoff v Charles Schad, Inc., 22 N.Y.2d 180, 186). Since the absence of safety railings cannot be considered either a latent defect or a hidden danger (see, Inman v Binghamton Hous. Auth., 3 N.Y.2d 137), the defendant must be granted summary judgment. Lawrence, J.P., Eiber, Kunzeman and Kooper, JJ., concur.