New York Labor Law §240 (the Scaffold Law), Explained

Most injured construction workers in New York are told the same thing after a fall: you have workers' compensation, and that's all you get. For anyone hurt in a fall from height — or struck by something falling — that is very often wrong, and New York Labor Law §240 is the reason.

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New York Labor Law §240, known as the Scaffold Law, requires property owners and contractors to provide proper protection to workers exposed to elevation-related hazards. If they fail and a worker is injured by a fall or a falling object, they can be held liable — even if the worker was partly careless.

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This guide covers what the statute says, who it protects, who it makes liable, which accidents count, why it is unlike any other injury claim in the state, what defenses exist, and how it fits with workers' comp. Kleban Law Group handles construction and Labor Law claims from its Valley Stream office across Nassau County, Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island, and NYC, on contingency. Now, the law.

What Is New York Labor Law §240?

Labor Law §240(1) requires that contractors, owners, and their agents furnish or erect, for the performance of covered work:

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“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.”

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It applies to workers engaged in “the erection, demolition, repairing, altering, painting, cleaning or pointing of a building or structure.” Two phrases in that language carry most of the weight:

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• “Proper protection.” The duty is not to provide a device — it is to provide one that actually works for the job. A ladder that was present but unsecured, or a harness with nowhere to tie off, can still be a violation. Equipment on site is not the same as proper protection.

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• “And other devices.” The list is illustrative, not exhaustive. Courts apply §240 to equipment and situations nobody imagined when the law was written.

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Why It's Called the Scaffold Law

New York first enacted this protection in 1885, when a building boom was killing workers at a rate that alarmed the legislature — long before OSHA or workers' compensation existed. New York is now the only state with a strict-liability scaffold law of this kind. Other states protect construction workers through their own safety laws, but none imposes this level of liability — which is why insurers and contractor groups perennially campaign to reform it. That debate is real, but it is not the subject of this article and does not change what the law requires today.

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Who Labor Law §240 Protects

The first question most readers have is simple: does this apply to me?

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• Workers doing the covered activities — construction, demolition, repair, alteration, painting, cleaning, or pointing of a building or structure.

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• Workers for subcontractors, too. §240 is not limited to employees of the general contractor. If you were working for a sub, you are generally still protected.

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• Immigration status does not bar a §240 claim. This is worth stating plainly, because fear on this point stops more valid claims than any legal defense ever has: a worker's immigration status does not, by itself, prevent a Labor Law §240 claim. Damages are where it gets more complicated — a jury may be permitted to consider immigration status when calculating loss-of-earnings damages. But that goes to the size of a recovery, not to whether you can bring the claim at all.

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• Who is generally not covered. Routine maintenance, as distinct from repair or alteration, falls outside the statute. So does work that is not one of the enumerated activities.

One caveat: coverage turns on what the worker was actually doing at the moment of injury — the categories above are the starting point, not the whole answer.

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Who Can Be Held Liable — and the Homeowner Exception

Who Is Liable for a Fall at a Construction Site?

The parties who owe the §240 duty are owners, general contractors, and their statutory agents — the parties with the authority to control the work. Here is the point that surprises most people: the owner can be liable even if they were never on site and did nothing wrong. The duty is non-delegable — an owner cannot contract it away to a subcontractor; the law places it on owners and contractors as a matter of policy, not fault.

The One- and Two-Family Homeowner Exception

The statute exempts owners of one- and two-family dwellings “who contract for but do not direct or control the work.” The exemption is narrow. A homeowner who hires a roofer and stays out of the way is generally exempt. A homeowner who supervises the job, directs how the work is done, or acts as their own general contractor may not be.

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The statute contains a parallel carve-out for architects, engineers, and landscape architects who do not direct or control the work. It is not a blanket shield, though. It protects the pure planning-and-design professional who has no supervisory control over the work; a design professional who actually exercises supervisory control can still be held liable. And even one confined to planning and design may face liability under another theory, including common-law negligence.

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What Accidents Does §240 Cover?

The organizing idea is gravity. If the harm flowed from a height difference — either the worker fell, or something fell on the worker — §240 is in play. If gravity was only incidental, it is not.

Falls From a Height

Ladders that slipped, shifted, or were unsecured; scaffolds that collapsed or lacked railings; falls through unguarded floor openings, roofs, and skylights; failures of hoists and lifts. These are the core §240 cases.

Falling Objects

The nuance matters, and many pages get it wrong. A falling object generally must have been in the process of being hoisted, or have required securing for the purposes of the work — not simply any object that happened to fall. New York's highest court drew that line in Narducci and refined it in Runner v. New York Stock Exchange, asking whether the harm flowed directly from gravity acting on an object that an adequate safety device should have controlled. On that logic, §240 can apply even where the object started at the worker's own level, if its weight and gravity still caused the injury.

What §240 Does Not Cover

Being honest about the limits is where this explanation earns its keep. §240 generally does not cover trips and slips on a flat surface, most on-site vehicle accidents, electrocutions, or most struck-by injuries at ground level. But an injury outside §240 may still be a strong claim under Labor Law §241(6) or §200 — so a non-“gravity” accident is the beginning of the analysis, not the end (more on that below).

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Why §240 Is Different From Every Other Injury Claim in New York

This is the conceptual heart of the statute. In an ordinary New York injury case, a plaintiff's own carelessness reduces recovery under pure comparative negligence. Under §240, once a violation is shown to have proximately caused the injury, the worker's own carelessness is not a defense. That is why these cases resolve as they do, and why insurers fight so hard over whether the statute applies at all.

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One point of precision matters: §240 is often called “absolute liability,” and that phrase overstates it if left alone. In Blake v. Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City, 1 N.Y.3d 280 (2003), the Court of Appeals held that liability still requires both a statutory violation and that the violation proximately caused the injury. The protection is extraordinarily strong, but it is not automatic — something about the required safety provision has to have actually failed.

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The Defenses: Sole Proximate Cause and the “Recalcitrant Worker”

A §240 claim is not unloseable, and any honest explanation says so.

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• Sole proximate cause. If the worker's own conduct was the only cause and no safety device failed, there is no §240 liability. Blake itself is the example — the ladder was sound, and the misuse was the entire cause.

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• The “recalcitrant worker.” Broadly, this arises where adequate safety devices were available, the worker knew they were expected to use them, and chose not to for no good reason.

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The distinction that matters most: courts consistently reject attempts to dress ordinary carelessness up as “sole proximate cause.” Standing on the top rung of a ladder, failing to lock a scaffold's wheels, or working somewhere you weren't supposed to are routinely treated as comparative negligence — no defense at all under §240. If you've been told your own carelessness sinks your case, that is very often wrong, and it is worth a second opinion.

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§240 vs §241(6) vs §200: How New York's Labor Laws Fit Together

These three statutes work together. A well-built construction case usually pleads all three, plus common-law negligence — they are not either/or choices.

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If your accident is not a §240 “gravity” case, Labor Law §240 and §241 claims are often pleaded side by side, so the door §240 closes, §241(6) or §200 may open. (A dedicated §241 guide is coming; this piece links to it when it publishes.)

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Can You Bring a §240 Claim If You're Already Getting Workers' Comp?

For many readers this is the whole question — and they arrive believing the answer is no. It usually isn't.

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• Workers' comp is generally your exclusive remedy against your own employer, and it is no-fault — you get it regardless of blame, but only from your employer.

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• A §240 claim is a third-party claim against a different party — the site owner, the general contractor, another contractor — and receiving comp does not bar it.

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• The difference in what you can recover is the point. Comp pays a portion of lost wages and your medical treatment. It does not pay for pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, or the full scope of your future losses. A third-party §240 claim can.

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• The comp lien is normal. The carrier will generally assert a lien against a third-party recovery — routine, negotiable, and handled by the firm, not by you.

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• One real trap: resolving a third-party claim without the comp carrier's consent can jeopardize your ongoing benefits — a concrete reason to get advice before signing anything.

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If you're receiving workers' comp after a fall and nobody has mentioned a third-party claim, it's worth a free call — (866) 263-4529 / (866) CME-4-LAW.

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You can also read what recovery looks like after a serious construction injury.

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How Long Do You Have to File?

• Three years from the date of injury for most §240 claims against a private owner or contractor (CPLR 214).

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• Public projects collapse the timeline. Where a public entity is involved — the City, a school district, an authority — a Notice of Claim is generally required within 90 days, with suit within one year and 90 days (GML §50-e / §50-i). Much of NYC construction is public work, so this is not an edge case.

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• Workers' comp has its own, separate, and much shorter notice requirements, which run independently of the §240 clock.

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• Evidence disappears long before any deadline. Conditions get remediated within days, scaffolds are struck, and daily logs, site photos, OSHA reports, and witness contacts for a transient workforce become very hard to recover.

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On a public project, the 90-day Notice of Claim window is the one genuinely urgent deadline on this page. If a public owner may be involved, that clock is a reason to get advice quickly — not later.

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What to Do If You Were Injured in a Fall on a New York Construction Site

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Report the injury to your employer in writing and keep a copy.

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Get medical treatment and be complete about every symptom, including the ones that seem minor.

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Photograph the scene, the equipment, and the conditions if you can do so safely — or ask a co-worker to.

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Write down what happened while it's fresh, including who was present.

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Get names and phone numbers for witnesses — on a transient site, they may be gone within weeks.

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File for workers' compensation. Doing so does not give up your §240 claim.

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Don't give a recorded statement, or sign any release or settlement, before getting advice.

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For the bigger picture of how a claim proceeds, see how personal injury claims work in New York.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Labor Law §240 strict liability?

It's often called “strict” or “absolute” liability, but under Blake you still must show a statutory violation that proximately caused the injury. What's exceptional is that, once you do, the worker's own comparative negligence is not a defense.

Does §240 apply to ladder falls?

Often, yes — a ladder that slipped, shifted, was unsecured, or was the wrong tool for the job can be a violation. A fall caused solely by misuse of a sound, properly provided ladder may not be. It's fact-specific.

Can I sue if I'm already receiving workers' compensation?

Usually, yes. Comp is your remedy against your employer; a §240 claim is a separate, third-party claim against the owner or contractor, and comp does not bar it. A third-party claim can also recover pain and suffering, which comp does not pay.

What if the fall was partly my fault?

Once a statutory violation is a proximate cause of your injury, your comparative negligence is not a defense. Being partly careless is often treated as comparative negligence — which §240 does not count against you.

Does §240 protect undocumented workers?

A worker's immigration status does not, by itself, bar a §240 claim. Damages can be more complicated — a jury may be allowed to consider immigration status when calculating lost-earnings damages — but that affects the size of a recovery, not your right to bring the claim. It's worth reviewing with an attorney.

How long do I have to bring a Labor Law §240 claim?

Generally three years from the injury against a private owner or contractor (CPLR 214). If a public entity is involved, a Notice of Claim is usually due within 90 days — so these cases are time-sensitive.

The Bottom Line

New York Labor Law §240 gives construction workers the strongest protection in the country against falls and falling objects. It holds owners and contractors responsible whether or not they were personally careless, and it survives the worker's own carelessness once a violation is a proximate cause of the injury. What it does not do is apply automatically — whether it fits your accident turns on facts worth having someone look at properly.

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If you were hurt in a fall on a New York construction site, that review is free. Call (866) 263-4529 / (866) CME-4-LAW or use the “What is my case worth?” form. We represent construction workers across Valley Stream, Nassau County, Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island, and New York City — and you pay nothing unless we win.

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