Parcells achieves another victory
Court dismisses lawsuit filed by landscaper who sued former NFL coach
Bill Parcells won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, took the New England Patriots to another Super Bowl and led the New York Jets to their first division title in nearly 30 years.
And now the Hall of Fame pro football coach has won at the state’s second-highest court in Albany, just down the road from where the horse racing fan has long owned a home in Saratoga Springs.
On Thursday, appellate justices in Albany unanimously dismissed a lawsuit filed against Parcells by a man who sustained injuries while trimming a tree at Parcells’ home in the Spa City in 2014.
William Vickers, a landscaper who did work for Parcells
between 2010 and 2014, sued the legendary coach in state Supreme Court in Saratoga County, alleging common law negligence and nuisance, the ruling said.
Parcells — nicknamed the Tuna but whose official name is Duane Charles Parcells — is originally from New Jersey but has had a home in Saratoga Springs since the mid 2000s, splitting his time between there and Florida. Parcells, who also had success coaching the Dallas Cowboys and in his later role as vice president of football operations for the Miami Dolphins, is retired.
On Sept. 27, 2014, Vickers said, he and two friends went to Parcells’ home in the Spa City planning to trim bushes.
Vickers said he supplied his own equipment, including a stepladder and gas-powered trimmer. Vickers said Parcells, while in a pool, asked him to remove the limbs of the birch trees on the property, even though Vickers had never done that before.
By Vickers’ admission, he decided what branches to trim and chose to place a stepladder under a birch tree with its back legs resting on mulch. Vickers climbed the ladder and, while trimming, fell off and was injured, the decision said.
“Although (Vickers) confirmed that he never told (Parcells) that he needed special equipment to trim the trees, he testified that he would have brought other equipment to support the ladder if he had known that (Parcells) was going to make that request,” stated the decision.
Vickers claimed that the mulch-covered area on Parcells’ property made it unsafe and that he would have brought other equipment had he known that the ex-coach would ask him to trim trees. He said it made Parcells legally responsible.
Parcells, 80, moved to dismiss the case, but state Supreme Court Justice James
Walsh allowed it to continue, at least in part. The coach appealed Walsh’s ruling to the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court’s Third Department in Albany.
On Sept. 17, the midlevel
court listened to arguments from Parcells’ attorney, Michael J. Murphy and Kristie Hanson, who represented Vickers. Hanson argued that Parcells knew Vickers was a land
scaper and not a tree trimmer. She also alleged his account of his whereabouts during the incident was not credible.
“Why didn’t (Vickers) then say, ‘I don’t have expertise in trimming trees?’” Justice Stanley Pritzker asked Hanson.
“Probably because he’s working for Bill Parcells,” she replied. “Bill Parcells is in the pool and wants something done and everybody jumps.”
The judge said that was not in the record.
On Thursday, the Third Department dismissed the entire suit against Parcells. The court ruling noted that Vickers admitted in a deposition that earlier in 2014, while
Parcells was in Florida, Vickers bought the mulch and spread it around Parcells’ property, including the area where Vickers was injured, without being asked to do so by Parcells.
Justice Michael Lynch, who authored the ruling, said homeowners are only liable for negligence for injuries arising from a contractor’s unsafe work practices when the owner has supervisory control over the work and knows about the unsafe manner of the work.
“Even assuming that the placement of the ladder on a bed of mulch constituted a dangerous condition — a dubious premise to begin with — (Parcells) did not create the hazard, as it is undisputed that (Vickers) and his associates were the
ones who spread the mulch and placed the ladder,” Lynch wrote. “Nor is there any evidence that (Parcells) had actual or constructive notice of the allegedly dangerous condition.”
Lynch added that Parcells “was not shown to have expertise in landscaping and, even if he was inside the house when the ladder was being set up on the mulch, this general awareness would be insufficient to establish notice of an unsafe condition.”
Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry and justices Christine Clark, John Egan and Pritzker concurred.
Murphy, Parcells’ attorney, said neither he nor the former coach would comment on the case.