Building owners, contractors, and their agents must ensure workers are protected from falls and height-related dangers during construction, demolition, and repairs. They must provide and properly install strong and secure safety equipment like scaffolds, hoists, ladders, ropes, and harnesses. Failure to do so makes them fully responsible for any injuries—even if they were not directly supervising the work. This law applies to injuries caused by a fall from a ladder or objects falling due to gravity, including short falls. The responsibility for ensuring safety lies with the owner or contractor, as they are best positioned to ensure that the job site is secure and hazard-free.
New York’s Labor Law § 240(1), also known as the Scaffold Law, imposes a non-delegable duty on owners, contractors, and their agents to provide proper safety devices to protect workers from elevation-related risks. A violation of this statute occurs when a safety device, such as a rope, pulley, or materials hoist, fails to provide adequate protection, and this failure proximately causes a worker's injuries. The statute is designed to ensure that workers are safeguarded against gravity-related hazards, and liability is often imposed regardless of the worker's own negligence, provided the statutory violation is established.
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Here’s how it works in practice:
- No Need to Prove Negligence:
An injured worker need not prove the defendant acted carelessly, which is otherwise a required element of a personal injury case. Liability is automatic if the injury resulted from inadequate safety devices or failure to comply with §240(1) in gravity-related hazards.
- Non-Delegable Duty:
Owners and contractors remain responsible for safety, even when subcontractors are hired. This ensures responsibility remains with the owner or contractor, who are best positioned to guard against gravity-related risks at a work site.
- Comparative Negligence Doesn’t Apply:
Under §240(1), owners and contractors are completely liable if a violation is proven, unlike other personal injury cases where the injured worker’s fault reduces damages. Even if a worker rushed or misused equipment, their recovery isn’t barred unless they “intentionally refused” safety devices.
A rope, pulley, or materials hoist is typically either a material platform hoist or a personnel hoist. A materials platform hoist is a power or manually operated suspended platform attached to a tower or similar structure used for raising or lowering materials. A personnel hoist is a power operated elevated car used primarily to carry persons to elevated areas during construction or demolition operations. Essentially, any apparatus which is used to lift workers or materials is treated as a hoist under the law.
In a rope, pulley, or materials hoist case, the injured worker must demonstrate a violation of the statute by showing that the rope, pulley, or hoist was either inadequate, unstable, broken, or improperly secured or placed. Examples of rope, pulley, or materials hoist failure cases that qualify under the Scaffold Law’s protection.
- A crane or derrick that fails or collapses, causing injury to a worker, qualifies under the statute's protection.
- A pulley that is not equipped with a brake system to prevent the rope from suddenly unwinding and slipping, that causes injury to a worker, qualifies under the protection of the statute.
- A crane that contacts electrical lines and injures a worker is improperly placed and, therefore, qualifies under the statute’s protection.
In a rope, pulley, or materials hoist case, the injured worker must show the statute violation caused the injury. Specifically, the injured worker must prove that the failure of the rope, pulley, or materials hoist case was a substantial factor in causing the injury.
There are exceptions to the protections provided by New York’s Scaffold Law. The most widely seen exception is the “Recalcitrant Worker” Defense. Defendants may argue that liability should be avoided if the worker deliberately ignored using available safety devices (e.g., an adequate rope, pulley, or materials hoist) despite having access and recent, specific instructions to use them. The defendant must prove the injured worker knew a proper safety device was available, that he was expected to use the proper safety device, that he chose for no good reason not to use the available safety device, and that he refused to follow a specific instruction to use the appropriate safety device. If the defendant fails to prove these circumstances, the injured worker’s accident qualifies under the protection of the statute.