Construction Accident lawyers in New York specialize in all types of construction accidents including ladder and scaffold accidents, crane accidents, and accidents involving demolition.

The New York Labor Law section 240 grants legal protection to construction workers injured due to elevation related accidents.

This statute also known as the “Scaffold Law” places responsibility on owners of property as well as the general contractors on a construction site for accidents where workers are injured due to falls from a height or due to a falling object.

There is an evolving line of case law precedent dealing with this statute.  The Appellate Divisions and the New York Court of Appeals interprets the Labor Law and explains in which situations it does or does not apply.

The law reads:

1. All contractors and owners and their agents, except owners of one and two-family dwellings who contract for but do not direct or control the work, in the erection, demolition, repairing, altering, painting, cleaning or pointing of a building or structure shall furnish or erect, or cause to be furnished or erected for the performance of such labor, scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys, braces, irons, ropes, and other devices which shall be so constructed, placed and operated as to give proper protection to a person so employed. No liability pursuant to this subdivision for the failure to provide protection to a person so employed shall be imposed on professional engineers as provided for in article one hundred forty-five of the education law, architects as provided for in article one hundred forty-seven of such law or landscape architects as provided for in article one hundred forty-eight of such law who do not direct or control the work for activities other than planning and design. This exception shall not diminish or extinguish any liability of professional engineers or architects or landscape architects arising under the common law or any other provision of law.