The New York Scaffold Law, codified at Labor Law Section 240, makes property owners and general contractors financially responsible when a construction worker is hurt in a gravity-related accident because proper safety equipment was missing, defective, or inadequate. Liability is absolute: the worker does not have to prove the owner or contractor was careless, and the worker’s own carelessness generally does not reduce the recovery. The statute has been on the books since 1885 and applies throughout New York State, not just New York City.
What Accidents the Law Covers
Section 240 reaches a defined set of construction activities: building, demolishing, repairing, altering, painting, cleaning, and pointing a building or structure.1New York State Senate. New York Labor Code 240 – Scaffolding and Other Devices for Use of Employees Courts read “structure” broadly, so bridges, water towers, and similar installations are included alongside traditional buildings.
The hazard has to involve gravity. Two patterns qualify: a worker falling from an elevated position, or an object falling from above and striking a worker. In either case, the injury must flow from what courts call a physically significant elevation differential. A slip on a flat, level surface does not count. A fall from an unsecured ladder six feet off the ground does. The statute names no minimum height, but the elevation difference must be meaningful enough that the kinds of safety devices the law lists would have been appropriate.
Routine maintenance generally falls outside the statute. Changing a lightbulb or sweeping a floor is not what the law was designed to protect. The work has to amount to construction, renovation, demolition, or a similar covered task. Courts also separate professional cleaning that requires specialized rigging from ordinary household chores.
What Absolute Liability Actually Means
This is the feature that makes Section 240 unusual. Three things set it apart from almost every other personal injury statute in the country.
You do not have to prove the owner or contractor was careless. The question is not whether they acted reasonably; it is whether adequate safety equipment was in place and functioning. If it was not, liability attaches.
The duty is non-delegable. An owner cannot escape by hiring a general contractor, and a general contractor cannot escape by using subcontractors. Responsibility follows the money.
Comparative negligence is off the table. In a typical New York personal injury case, a jury can reduce your damages if you were partly at fault. Under Section 240, it cannot.
The statute also reaches “agents” of owners and contractors. Construction managers with authority to direct and control the work on behalf of an owner can be held liable as statutory agents. So can subcontractors who supervised the specific activity that led to the injury. If an entity had the power to ensure safe conditions and failed to use it, the statute can reach them.
The One Defense That Works
Absolute liability is not quite automatic liability. Defendants have one meaningful way out: proving that the worker was the sole proximate cause of the accident. The bar is high. The defense must show that adequate safety equipment was available at the site, that the worker knew it was available and was expected to use it, that the worker chose not to use it for no good reason, and that the accident would not have happened if the worker had made a different choice. All four pieces must line up.
In practice, this defense fails far more often than it succeeds. If the available equipment was defective, if the worker had a reasonable justification for not using it, or if a supervisor directed the worker to proceed without it, the argument collapses. The burden sits entirely on the defendant, and courts examine these claims closely. Most Section 240 cases turn on a simple factual question: was the right equipment there and working, or wasn’t it?
When Homeowners Are Exempt
The statute carves out a narrow exception for individual homeowners. If you own a one- or two-family home and hire a contractor for work like roof repair or siding replacement, you are generally exempt from Section 240 liability as long as you do not direct or control how the work is performed.1New York State Senate. New York Labor Code 240 – Scaffolding and Other Devices for Use of Employees The typical homeowner who hires a roofer, stays out of the way, and lets professionals handle the job qualifies.
The exception disappears if you cross into actively managing the construction. Telling a contractor what general result you want is fine. Dictating safety procedures, specifying the sequence of work tasks, or directing workers to skip steps is not. Courts look at whether the homeowner exercised meaningful control over the method and manner of the work, not merely whether they were physically present.
The property has to genuinely function as your residence. If the building is primarily commercial, or if you are renovating a two-family home purely as an investment property where you have never lived, the exception may not apply. Homeowners who do qualify should still confirm that any contractor they hire carries commercial general liability insurance and workers’ compensation coverage before work begins. The exemption removes Section 240 exposure; it does not close every other door to liability.
Safety Equipment the Law Requires
Section 240 requires owners and contractors to furnish scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys, braces, irons, ropes, and similar protective devices.1New York State Senate. New York Labor Code 240 – Scaffolding and Other Devices for Use of Employees The list is not exhaustive. The statute adds “and other devices,” which means any equipment appropriate to the specific job site hazard. If the task calls for a safety harness and none is provided, the statute is violated just as surely as if a ladder were missing.
The equipment must be properly built, correctly positioned, and operated in a way that actually protects the worker. A ladder that is present but not secured at the base fails this standard. The law also sets two specific benchmarks for scaffolding. Scaffolding more than twenty feet above the ground must include a safety rail at least thirty-four inches high running along the full outside edge.1New York State Senate. New York Labor Code 240 – Scaffolding and Other Devices for Use of Employees All scaffolding, regardless of height, must be engineered to support four times the maximum weight it will bear during use.
Section 240 operates alongside federal OSHA regulations, which impose their own fall-protection requirements, including guardrails at forty-two inches on construction sites and documented training for exposed workers.2Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Standard 1926.502 – Fall Protection Systems Criteria and Practices One point matters for injured workers: full compliance with OSHA does not shield an owner or contractor from liability under Section 240. The New York Court of Appeals has said so directly. If a gravity-related accident happens because protection was inadequate, the Section 240 claim survives even if every federal box was checked.
What an Injured Worker Can Recover
A successful Section 240 claim entitles the injured worker to the full range of personal injury damages: past and future medical expenses, past and future lost earnings, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and any permanent disability or disfigurement. Because comparative negligence does not apply, the full calculated amount is recoverable without reduction for the worker’s own conduct.
Proving the claim requires two things. First, that a required safety device was absent, defective, or inadequate for the task. Second, that this failure directly caused the injury. If a scaffold collapsed under normal load, the first element is straightforward. If a worker fell because of a medical episode and happened to be on a scaffold, the statute does not apply, because the lack of equipment did not cause the fall. Useful evidence typically includes site photographs, coworker testimony, safety inspection logs, records of what equipment was provided, any OSHA investigation report, and medical records tying the physical harm to the incident.
Most of the money recovered is not taxable. Proceeds for physical injuries or physical sickness are excluded from federal income tax, provided you did not deduct the related medical expenses in a prior year.3Internal Revenue Service. Publication 4345 – Settlements Taxability Damages for emotional distress stemming from a physical injury get the same treatment. Punitive damages, when they occur, are always taxable.
Workers’ Compensation and Your Lawsuit
Workers’ compensation and a Section 240 lawsuit are not an either-or choice. New York law allows an injured worker to collect workers’ compensation benefits and also pursue a separate personal injury claim against a third party such as the property owner or general contractor.4New York State Senate. New York Workers Compensation Law 29 – Remedies of Employees; Subrogation Workers’ comp covers medical expenses and part of lost wages starting almost immediately, with no need to prove fault. The Section 240 claim, which takes longer, can recover damages workers’ comp does not cover, including pain and suffering.
There is a catch. The workers’ compensation carrier gets a lien on whatever you recover from the third-party lawsuit, covering every dollar paid out in medical expenses, wage-replacement benefits, and future payments the carrier was obligated to make.4New York State Senate. New York Workers Compensation Law 29 – Remedies of Employees; Subrogation The carrier has to share litigation costs including attorney fees, and courts use formulas to reduce the lien to account for those costs. Once the lien is paid, the carrier’s duty to pay ongoing benefits may be offset by the net settlement. The math gets complicated and it is one of the places where experienced counsel changes what the worker actually takes home.
Deadlines for Filing
New York gives injured workers three years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury lawsuit.5New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules 214 – Actions to Be Commenced Within Three Years If the accident resulted in death, the family has two years from the date of death to bring a wrongful death action.
Government projects are different. If the property owner is a city, county, or state agency, you may have as little as 90 days to file a notice of claim and only one year and 90 days to file the lawsuit itself. Missing these shorter deadlines can destroy an otherwise strong case, and the mistake cannot be fixed after the fact.
Related Claims Under Sections 241(6) and 200
Most construction injury cases in New York involve more than one Labor Law section. Section 241(6) requires that construction, excavation, and demolition work areas be equipped and conducted to provide reasonable and adequate protection to workers, measured against specific regulations in the Industrial Code.6New York State Senate. New York Labor Law 241 – Construction, Excavation and Demolition Work A worker bringing a 241(6) claim must identify a specific Industrial Code regulation the defendant violated. Unlike Section 240, this claim allows comparative negligence: if a jury finds you 30% at fault, your recovery drops by 30%. It is a weaker tool than Section 240, but it covers construction hazards beyond gravity-related ones.
Section 200 codifies the common-law duty every employer has to provide a reasonably safe workplace.7New York State Senate. New York Labor Law 200 – General Duty to Protect the Health and Safety of Employees It requires proof of actual negligence; the injured worker must show the owner or contractor either created the dangerous condition or had actual or constructive notice of it. These claims are harder to win but cover situations outside Sections 240 and 241(6), so plaintiffs often add them as an additional theory.
Ongoing Reform Pressure
The Scaffold Law has been politically contested for decades. Real estate and construction industry groups argue the absolute liability standard inflates insurance costs by as much as 10% per project and discourages development. They have pushed repeatedly to replace absolute liability with a comparative negligence standard. Labor unions and worker safety organizations have opposed each reform attempt, arguing that the strict standard is what forces owners and contractors to invest in fall protection in the first place.
The most recent pressure has come at the federal level. U.S. Representative Nick Langworthy introduced a bill that would strip federal funding eligibility from any New York project subject to the Scaffold Law’s absolute liability standard. A similar measure passed the U.S. Senate in 2018 but failed in the House. Supporters of the current bill have identified the next federal surface transportation spending package as a possible vehicle. For now, Section 240’s absolute liability standard is intact, and any worker injured in a gravity-related construction accident in New York retains the full protection the statute has provided since 1885.