Plumber has no duty to inspect or warn of purported defects outside scope of work.

In Rosenbaum v. A Superior Service and Repair 146 A.D.3d 489 (1st Dept. 2017), a subrogation action against a plumber retained to perform a specific scope of work, the Appellate Division, First Department reversed the lower court's denial of summary judgment to A Superior, holding that Superior cannot be liable for a failure to detect and/or correct an improper connection between a sanitary line and the storm water stack outside of the scope of its contract and outside the area of its work and did not launch an instrument of harm as a matter of law. The Court held that in the absence of a contract for routine maintenance, an independent contractor has no duty to inspect or warn of purported defects. Moreover, expert assertions that a master plumber should have performed testing not included in its contract and verified the accuracy of the sanitary and storm water connections or conducted independent surveys to verify plumbing drawings, without authority or industry standards, are conclusory.