Scaffold Law (Labor Law §240)

N.Y. Labor Law § 240 (Scaffold Law)

Requires all contractors, owners, and their agents to furnish or erect, and to properly construct, place, and operate, scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys, braces, irons, ropes, and other devices that give proper protection to workers engaged in the erection, demolition, repairing, altering, painting, cleaning, or pointing of a building or structure, against elevation-related (height/gravity) hazards; owners of one- and two-family dwellings who contract for but do not direct or control the work are exempt. The duty is non-delegable, and New York courts have construed a §240(1) violation that proximately causes a gravity-related injury as imposing absolute (strict) liability on owners and contractors regardless of the worker's or employer's fault.