Certified Question. The Second Circuit has certified two questions to the New York State Court of Appeals:

1. Where a worker who is serving as a counterweight on a makeshift pulley is dragged into a pulley mechanism after a heavy object on the other side of a pulley repidly descends a small set of stairs, causing an injury to plainitiff's hand, is the injury (a) an "elevation related injury," and (b) directly caused by the effect of gravity, such that section 240(1) of New York's Labor Law applies?

2. If an injury stems from neither a falling worker nor a falling object that strikes a plaintiff, does liabiity exist under section 240(1) of New York's Labor Law?

The decision in Runner v. New York Stock Exchange can be found here.