Who are the “owners” for purposes of sections 240 and 241(6) of the Labor Law when a proprietary lessee of a cooperative hires a contractor to do work in “his” or “her” apartment? What if the apartment is instead a condominium and the hirer owns it? What if the contractor is instead hired to do work in the building’s common areas?

A divided Court of Appeals recently answered one of those questions and suggested answers to others just last month, in Guryev v. Tomchinsky.1

Labor Law ‘Ownership’