A fire caused structural damage to a building owned by J.H. Shaw Realty (Shaw) and occupied by steel manufacturer Blue Blade Steel Corp. (Blue Blade) in October, 2020. Blue Blade hired a roofing contractor to repair the roof. After an insurance investigation identified asbestos in the damaged roof, Blue Blade hired United Safety for the asbestos remediation. As the project neared completion in April, 2021, Plaintiff Kemal Beciragic, an employee of United Safety, fell through the roof and landed on the concrete floor below, sustaining severe injuries. Plaintiff sued Shaw and Blue Blade for his injuries; because it was his employer and solely liable for his injuries under the Workers’ Compensation Act, United Safety was only a party for discovery. The issue in Beciragic v. Blue Blade Steel Corp., 2026 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1834 (App. Div. Aug. 6, 2026) was whether the defendants had a duty to Plaintiff to ensure his safety during his work on the roof.
Prior to their work, United Safety’s supervisor inspected the roof on Shaw’s building and found it in poor condition. Due to the danger, the supervisor instructed his workers, including Plaintiff, to use safety harnesses. However, Plaintiff was not wearing his harness at the time of his fall because it interfered with his freedom of movement. Further, because Blue Blade continued operations while United Safety performed their work, the two coordinated with each other on work scheduling, Blue Blade did not control United Safety’s work methods, give them instructions on remediation, or manage their employees’ safety or equipment.
Shaw and Blue Blade each filed summary judgment motions arguing that they had no duty for Plaintiff’s injuries because they did not manage or instruct United Safety on its work and that Plaintiff was aware of the damage to the building and he chose not to use fall-protection gear provided by United Safety. Plaintiff opposed, arguing Blue Blade was responsible for oversight and coordination of the project and violated various OSHA regulations in not assuring any subcontractor complied with those requirements.
The trial court granted summary judgment, finding that the defendants owed no duty to Plaintiff because they disclosed the defect and foreseeable danger to United Safety, Plaintiff’s employer, who oversaw the means and methods of Plaintiff’s work. The trial court explained that because Plaintiff was injured doing the very work he was contracted to perform, the defendants had the right to assume United Safety’s employees had sufficient skill to recognize the danger involved and adjust their methods accordingly. Further, the court found OSHA’s regulations were only a factor in the analysis of whether the defendants had a duty and did not dispositively establish a duty. Plaintiff appealed.
In its appeal, Plaintiff claimed that a genuine issue of material fact existed as to the duty each defendant owed to Plaintiff while working on their property and that all of the defendants were contractors who controlled some element of Plaintiff’s work.
The Appellate Division conducted its review by looking at the general law of negligence, then at the element of duty, establishing that Plaintiff was a business invitee to whom the defendants owed a duty to guard against dangerous conditions they know of or should have discovered. The Court then specifically focused on the duty a general contractor has for the injuries of its subcontractor’s employees, noting that a general contractor can assume a subcontractor and its employees are sufficiently skilled to recognize the dangers in their job and adjust their work accordingly. When the subcontractor is hired to work on a specific hazard itself, the owner or general contractor is not required to eliminate those hazards which are obvious and visible to the subcontractor and what the subcontractor was hired to work on in the first place. Similarly, OSHA regulations intended to make a job site safe for contactors are only one factor in a negligence analysis, not the sole basis for a general contractor’s duty. The Appellate Division ultimately held that a landowner or general contractor is under no duty to protect the employee of a subcontractor from the very hazard created by the doing of the contract work when they do not retain control of the means and methods of the work itself.
Here, though the defendants all knew of the latent defects to the roof caused by the fire, they communicated those to United Safety; indeed, that was the specific reason United Safety had been hired. Plaintiff’s supervisor knew of the roof damage, had inspected it, and found it to be in bad shape. As a result, United Safety implemented safety measures, measures that Plaintiff intentionally chose to avoid. Further, to the extent Plaintiff argued each defendant was a general contractor, the same law applies – they are not liable for his injuries because they arose from the roof damage he knew existed and was hired to perform. As for Plaintiff’s claim that the defendants’ OSHA violations created an issue of material fact, the Court stated without more to support a claim for liability, an OSHA violation alone does not support a negligence claim. The Court affirmed the trial court’s grant of the defendants’ summary judgment motions, dismissing the complaint.
The key takeaways here include the reinforcement of a landowner’s duty to warn of a dangerous condition, and how that duty may be discharged to a subcontractor hired to perform repairs on that same open and obvious condition. Also, the critical fact here was the defendants’ lack of control over United Safety’s employees’ means and methods of work, which include the use (or lack of use) of safety equipment. Finally, while many plaintiffs may point at OSHA regulations as sacrosanct, this case makes it clear that those regulations do not create a per se legal duty, but are only factors to consider in a broader negligence analysis.
