New York Labor Law §240 (The Scaffold Law) Explained

Labor Law §240 is the most powerful tool a hurt construction worker has in New York, and it’s the reason serious job-site injury cases here play out differently than anywhere else. People call it the Scaffold Law, but it covers far more than scaffolds.

The statute exists because gravity is unforgiving and workers rarely control the safety equipment on a site. So the law puts that responsibility — and the liability — on the people who do: owners and general contractors.

What “absolute liability” really means

In a normal injury case, a jury weighs everyone’s fault and the defense argues you were partly to blame to shrink the award. §240 removes that argument for a specific category of accidents. If you prove a statutory violation — a missing, defective, or improperly placed safety device — was a proximate cause of a gravity-related injury, the owner and general contractor are liable, and your comparative negligence generally does not reduce the recovery.

This duty is non-delegable. It doesn’t matter that a subcontractor built the bad scaffold or that your own employer supplied the ladder. The owner and GC own the obligation.

The two situations §240 covers

• Falling workers — a worker falls from a height because a scaffold, ladder, hoist, or other device failed or was absent.
• Falling objects — a worker is struck by an object that fell because it wasn’t properly secured or hoisted for the work.

What you have to prove

1. Covered work. Construction, demolition, repair, painting, cleaning, or altering — not routine maintenance.
2. A covered defendant. An owner or general contractor (with narrow exceptions for certain owner-occupied one- and two-family homes).
3. A gravity-related risk. The injury flows from a height differential.
4. A safety-device failure that was a proximate cause of the injury.

The defense’s only real escape: sole proximate cause

Because comparative fault doesn’t apply, the defense must prove you were the sole proximate cause — typically that an adequate safety device was available, you knew you were expected to use it, and you unreasonably chose not to for no good reason. It’s a demanding standard, and it fails whenever the equipment itself was inadequate or missing.

§240 alongside comp and §241(6)

Workers’ compensation pays medical bills and partial wages regardless of fault but nothing for pain and suffering. The §240 lawsuit against the owner and GC is where full damages are recovered; both run in parallel and the comp lien is resolved at the end. We usually plead §241(6) too as a backstop for injuries that don’t fit the gravity requirement. Undocumented workers are fully protected — immigration status is not a defense.

See our construction accident pillar, our scaffold accident page, and the Labor Law §241(6) explainer. Questions about your case? Contact us.