A 52-year-old woman employed by our client, a nursing home, sued the nursing home and the company that manufactured and maintained its elevators after sustaining injuries resulting in spinal fusion surgery when an elevator allegedly fell several feet and came to an abrupt stop with the plaintiff inside. We moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s action as against the nursing home on the basis that the plaintiff was estopped, pursuant to the Workers Compensation Law, from suing her employer for negligence in regard to on-the-job injuries. Our motion was granted and the case against our client dismissed. When the elevator company’s motion for summary judgment was denied, it settled the claims against it for $675,000 and commenced an action against the nursing home for common law and contractual indemnification. We then moved for summary judgment to dismiss the elevator company’s case, and that motion was also granted.  The court agreed with us that, in legal effect, the elevator company was trying to be indemnified for its own negligence in violation of the relevant provisions of the NY General Obligations Law.  As the nursing home obviously was not an agent of the elevator company in the maintenance of the elevator, the elevator company was never at risk, prior to electing to settle with the plaintiff, of being properly saddled with a damages verdict in the plaintiff’s underlying action unless a jury first found the elevator company to have directly committed negligent acts or omissions serving as a proximate cause of the damages.  Further, as there was no indemnification provision in the elevator service contract, there was no contractual basis upon which the elevator company could obtain contractual indemnity from the nursing home.  Finally, the court rejected the elevator company’s argument that the nursing home had not purchased a full-service elevator contract and was therefore liable by virtue of a common law “non-delegable duty” to maintain the elevator, as it was demonstrated that the elevator company had been the last party to control the elevator before the accident, was aware of the potential safety issue but elected to leave the cab in service, and, in view of those facts, could not succeed upon a theory of common law indemnification.   Judgment was entered for the nursing home.