Imagine, if you will, there were thorough, sensible, and highly detailed regulations that set forth mandatory safety standards governing the dangerous construction and demolition fields. Imagine further that the regulations were continually updated and improved so as to incorporate technological advances and reflect the wisdom of governmental and non-governmental safety studies. And imagine that a cadre of governmental inspectors encouraged compliance with those standards (well, at least up until 2016) by investigating (and imposing fines) with respect to the occurrence of fatal or very serious accidents, and by randomly inspecting construction sites without advance warning.

Finally, and while keeping all of the above in mind, imagine that when assessing fault for purposes of personal injury litigation arising from construction/demolition accidents we completely ignored those detailed and continuously updated regulations and instead relied solely upon a different set of regulations that (1) were last amended in 1975, (2) are virtually unknown outside of the courtroom, and (3) are not enforced or supported by any form of governmental inspection, which is why they are virtually unknown outside of the courtroom.