Appeal from a judgment of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Kings County (Loren Baily-Schiffman, J.), entered January 17, 2008. The judgment, entered upon jury verdicts on the issues of liability and damages, awarded plaintiff the principal sum of $1,875,000.

ORDERED that the judgment is reversed without costs and the matter is remitted to the Civil Court for a new trial.

Plaintiff brought this action to recover damages for injuries he allegedly suffered while performing work for defendant. Plaintiff asserted claims based upon common law negligence as well as violations of Labor Law §§ 200, 240 (1), and § 241 (6).

After the jury returned a verdict against defendant on the issue of liability in a bifurcated trial, defendant's counsel asked that the jury be polled and the Civil Court refused. Thereafter, the issue of damages was tried before the same jury. Defendant subsequently sought to vacate the jury's verdicts. In that motion, as on appeal, defendant argued, among other things, that the refusal to poll the jury mandates a new trial. We agree.

In Duffy v Vogel (12 NY3d 169 [2009]), the Court of Appeals noted that the right to poll a jury is absolute in New York, and stated that "the failure to poll a jury may never be deemed harmless." In these circumstances, we find that the Civil Court's failure to poll the jury as requested requires a new trial of this action.

Accordingly, the judgment is reversed and the matter is remitted to the Civil Court for a new trial.

Pesce, P.J., Golia and Rios, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: July 29, 2010