Labor Law sec. 240(1) - New York's Scaffold Law

Section 240(1) of the Labor Law

The most frequent searches that lead to this blawg deal with the Labor Law. Therefore, I am including the text of the statute for your easy reference.

Scaffolding and other devices for use of employees.

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.
No liability pursuant to this subdivision for the failure to provide
protection to a person so employed shall be imposed on professional
engineers as provided for in article one hundred forty-five of the
education law, architects as provided for in article one hundred
forty-seven of such law or landscape architects as provided for in
article one hundred forty-eight of such law who do not direct or control
the work for activities other than planning and design. This exception
shall not diminish or extinguish any liability of professional engineers
or architects or landscape architects arising under the common law or
any other provision of law.

Comments

[TOM]

ACCORING TO THE ABOVE, A HOMEOWNER CAN NOT BE RESPONSIBLE MONATERALY FOR A INJURED WORKER ON A ROOF PROJECT IF THE ROOFING COMPANY DOES NOT HAVE ROOFERS INSURANCE AND THE INJURED WORKER IS AWARDED MORE THAN THE HOMEOWNERS HOME INSURANECE ALLOWS FOR?

[Shawn- Hofstra Law]

Tom- That is not what the statute entails. This statute imposes strict liability on general contractors and building owners when workers are injured as the result of a fall from a height. This means that even if the gen. contractor/building owner is 1% at fault for the worker's injury and the worker is 99% at fault, then the gen. contractor/building owner is entirely liable for the worker's damages.(pretty powerful law for workers!) The statute exempts single family homeowners from this strict liabilty, but it does not exempt them from normal tort liability. This means that a homeowner can still be held liable, just not under the same strict liabilty 240(1) standard as general contractors and building owners. Hope this answers your question.

-Shawn

[dennis coleman]

i was 10 days on the on this job where i was working.a subfloor was fab in. i was instructed to install two beamsin the over head,i was on a ladder to set the beams.in this room there were open holes in the sub floor where they were not finsh.i set one side and had to go two the other side to set the beam and came down the ladder and step in the and jammed my shoulder.and had surgical inervention for rotator cuff repair.dose sec.240 stand here.

[Bill Pulos]

Corporate/Labor Law 240. Wrongful death case.

A covered worker is crushed by a 5 ton turbine that slipped from its mount on 3 jack stands in 2008 at a factory owned by a foreign corporation.

Suit is filed in 2009 against the owner of the property (A corp), a Delaware corp, with principal offices in Ct. Apparently, A Corp was a wholly owned subsidiary of B Corp., also a Delaware corp. with principal offices at the same address in Ct. B corp is the Employer of decedent.

B Corp counsel (with back-up corp resolutions and State of Delaware merger docs) claims that A Corp (the corporate owner of the property at the time of the accident) was merged into B corp (decedent's employer) in Delaware (in 2007) one year before the accident occurred (title to the land was in the name of A corp at the time of suit and still is in the name of A Corp even though taxes are now being paid by B Corp).

Thus (B corp's argument goes) at the time of the accident and at the time of the Labor Law suit in 2009 "A corp didn't exist" and now the wrongful death case "is improperly asserting a present time action against the employer, etc, etc."

The merger docs state that B Corp assumes all the rights and obligations of A corp, again this merger occurred a year before the accident.

Since title to the real estate was never conveyed (from A to B) on record, can the Estate still bring suit (if so against whom and where) and is B Corp responsible for the A corp Labor Law liability?

Any remedy for the Estate in NY or elsewhere?

Many thanks for your help.

Bill

[Scaffolding Accident]

One of the commonest reasons for serious injury on a building site is a scaffolding accident. Workers falling from scaffolding, and items dropped from scaffolding which hit people on the ground, cause back and spinal damage, broken limbs and head injuries and, in most cases, are completely preventable. Rules included in the Safety.