| Description: | Workers’ compensation is the primary recovery system after any workplace injuries. However, New York state law is unique in that it applies strict liability to employers, contract awarders, and property owners for nearly all accidents involving gravity. This protection is referred to generally as New York’s “Scaffold Law,” and it can be found in the New York Labor Laws § 240. The most relevant passage of Labor Law § 240 for injury claims is located in Article 1: “All contractors and owners and their agents, except owners of one and two-family dwellings who contract for but do not direct or control the work, in the erection, demolition, repairing, altering, painting, cleaning or pointing of a building or structure shall furnish or erect, or cause to be furnished or erected for the performance of such labor, scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys, braces, irons, ropes, and other devices which shall be so constructed, placed and operated as to give proper protection to a person so employed.” So, in sum, New York Labor Law § 240 does a lot of the heavy lifting, so to speak, for injury victims seeking to prove liability. They don’t have to prove that the contractor or property owner was negligent for any specific reason; they only have to establish that a fall happened. Because of this legal interpretation, it is important for all construction employees to evaluate whether Labor Law § 240 could affect their injury case. |
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