Never before has there been greater traction to reform New York’s well-known scaffolding statute embodied in Labor Law §240(1). This well-intentioned law has evolved over the past two decades into a windfall for a small group of plaintiff’s attorneys, while simultaneously causing construction insurance premiums to skyrocket. By all accounts, these increased insurance costs have limited real estate development in and around New York City, causing major developers to look to other states for development sites.
New York’s scaffolding statute is one of three critical provisions of the Labor Law that regulate an employer’s responsibility to furnish a safe workplace during the construction process. Specifically, owners and general contractors are subject to: a) Labor Law §200, codifying the common law duty to provide employees with a safe workplace; b) Labor Law §240(1), regulating special hazards related to elevation concerns in the construction industry; and c) Labor Law §241(6), imposing liability based on violations of the New York State Industrial Code. Under Section 240′s system of "absolute liability," as long as the plaintiff can establish that the defendants violated the statute in any way, however miniscule, and such violation was a contributing factor to the accident, the defendants will be held liable for the full extent of the plaintiff’s damages.1 As discussed below, this system represents the strictest imposition of liability for elevated construction accidents in the United States.
