Can Injured Construction Workers Sue Under the Scaffold Law?

Yes. New York's Scaffold Law, Labor Law Section 240(1), lets an injured construction worker sue the property owner and the general contractor when a failure of elevation-related safety protection caused the injury. That lawsuit is separate from workers' compensation, and a worker can pursue both at the same time.

Kelner & Kelner has represented seriously injured construction workers and the families of workers killed on New York job sites for decades, and our New York construction accident attorneys handle Labor Law cases across the five boroughs and the surrounding counties. Robert S. Kelner and the trial lawyers who work with him have appeared for workers in every trade. This article expands on our New York construction accident practice.

What Is the Scaffold Law?

The Scaffold Law is Labor Law Section 240(1). It requires owners, contractors, and their agents to furnish and place scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys, braces, ropes, and other devices so as to give proper protection to workers exposed to elevation-related risks. New York is the only state with a statute of this kind.

The duty is nondelegable, meaning an owner or general contractor cannot escape it by pointing to a subcontractor or by writing responsibility into someone else's contract. The obligation attaches because of the party's status as owner or contractor, not because of anything it personally did on the site.

The statute applies to workers engaged in the erection, demolition, repairing, altering, painting, cleaning, or pointing of a building or structure. Routine maintenance that is not part of a larger alteration or repair generally falls outside it, and where an activity sits on that line is a frequently litigated question.

Can You Sue Under the Scaffold Law If You Are Getting Workers' Compensation?

Yes, and this is the point most injured workers do not know. Workers' compensation is generally the exclusive remedy against your own employer. It does not bar a claim against the property owner, the general contractor, the construction manager, or another subcontractor, and those are exactly the parties the Scaffold Law reaches.

On virtually every New York job site of any size, the owner and the general contractor are separate companies from the injured worker's employer. That structure is what makes the third-party Labor Law case available in most serious construction injuries.

The difference in outcome is substantial. Compensation pays a portion of wages and medical treatment on a schedule. It pays nothing for pain and suffering, nothing for the full value of a lost career, and nothing for what a permanent injury takes from a person's life. Two rules govern the interplay: the compensation carrier holds a lien on the third-party recovery under Workers' Compensation Law Section 29, and Section 29(5) requires the carrier's written consent or court approval before settling the third-party case, because settling without consent can forfeit future benefits.

Who Is Protected by Labor Law 240, and Who Can Be Sued?

The statute protects persons employed in covered construction work. It imposes liability on owners, contractors, and their agents, which in practice means the property owner, the general contractor, the construction manager acting as an agent, and sometimes a tenant performing work.

• Covered workers: employees of subcontractors, of the general contractor, and in many circumstances independent contractors, across all trades including carpenters, electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, laborers, painters, roofers, masons, and demolition workers.
• Owners: including those who did not supervise or control any part of the work, and including out-of-possession owners.
• General contractors and construction managers: where the manager had the authority to supervise and control the work such that it functioned as the owner's agent.
• The one and two-family homeowner exemption: owners of one and two-family dwellings who contract for but do not direct or control the work are generally exempt from Sections 240 and 241.
• Not covered: passersby, visitors, and delivery personnel who are not employed in the covered work, who may still have ordinary negligence claims.

Immigration status does not bar a Labor Law claim in New York. An undocumented worker injured by a scaffold failure has the same right to bring the claim, though the recovery of certain lost earnings can depend on the specific circumstances of the employment.

What Kinds of Accidents Does the Scaffold Law Cover?

Injuries that flow directly from the application of gravity, in two directions: a worker falling from a height, and an object falling onto a worker. The unifying question is whether the harm resulted from an elevation differential that required a protective device.

• Scaffold failures: collapse, missing planks, absent guardrails, improper erection, and overloading.
• Ladder falls: a ladder that shifted, slipped, wobbled, or was unsecured, and a ladder used where the work required a scaffold or lift.
• Falls through openings: unsecured or unmarked floor, roof, and shaft openings.
• Falls from unprotected edges: leading edges, roofs, and elevated decks without guardrails or perimeter protection.
• Fall arrest failures: a harness issued with no anchor point, an inadequate anchor, or a lifeline that failed.
• Hoist and lift failures: material and personnel hoists, and aerial and boom lifts.
• Falling objects: materials, tools, or loads that fell while being hoisted or that required securing and were not secured.
• Loads under tension: including injuries caused when a worker is pulled or struck by a load whose descent was inadequately controlled.

What Accidents Does the Scaffold Law Not Cover?

Ordinary job site accidents that are not elevation-related. Being hurt on a construction site does not by itself create a Section 240 claim, and understanding the boundary explains why some serious injuries proceed under other sections instead.

Falls on the same level are not covered: tripping over debris, slipping on a wet floor, or stepping into a hole in the ground. Falling object claims require that the object was being hoisted or that it required securing for the purposes of the undertaking, so a piece of material that simply broke loose from an existing structure, without a physically significant elevation differential and a securing requirement, generally falls outside the statute.

Modest elevation differentials that do not call for a protective device have also been held outside the statute, including in cases involving falls from the bed of a flatbed truck. Injuries from equipment operation, electrocution, trench collapse, and struck-by events involving vehicles are generally addressed under Labor Law Section 241(6) or Section 200 rather than Section 240.

What Does "Absolute Liability" Actually Mean?

It means that once a violation of the statute is established and that violation was a proximate cause of the injury, liability follows, and the worker's own comparative negligence is not a defense. It does not mean an owner is liable simply because a worker fell.

The distinction matters. The Court of Appeals has been clear that Section 240(1) is not a strict liability statute in the sense of guaranteeing recovery for every elevation accident. There must be a statutory violation, meaning the required protection was absent, inadequate, or improperly placed, and that failure must have caused the injury.

Where a violation is established, the practical consequence is powerful. A worker can move for summary judgment on liability before trial rather than waiting years for a jury to decide fault, leaving only damages to be tried. That posture is what changes how a carrier evaluates the case.

What Defenses Do Owners and Contractors Raise?

Because comparative negligence is off the table, the defense concentrates on two arguments: that there was no statutory violation, and that the worker's own conduct was the sole proximate cause of the accident.

• No violation: that adequate safety devices were provided and properly placed, and that the accident happened for some other reason.
• Sole proximate cause: that adequate devices were available, the worker knew he was expected to use them, chose for no good reason not to, and would not have been injured had he used them. Each element has to be established, and the defense fails if any protection was in fact inadequate.
• Recalcitrant worker: a narrower version of the same idea, involving a worker who refused a specific instruction to use an available device.
• Not a covered activity: that the work was routine maintenance rather than repair, alteration, or the other enumerated activities.
• Not an elevation-related risk: that the differential was too modest, or that the object did not require securing.
• Homeowner exemption: on one and two-family dwelling projects.

Sole proximate cause is the argument raised most often and won least often, because it collapses the moment the evidence shows the provided protection was itself deficient.

Did New York's 2026 Tort Reform Change the Scaffold Law?

No. New York enacted motor vehicle tort reform effective in May 2026, including a bar on recovery where a plaintiff is more than fifty percent at fault. That provision is limited by its terms to motor vehicle personal injury actions under Article 51 of the Insurance Law and does not reach construction claims.

Labor Law Section 240 was not amended. Reform proposals to add comparative fault to the Scaffold Law have been introduced repeatedly and have not been enacted. Because legislation is proposed each session, the current state of the statute should be confirmed before relying on it in a specific case, but as matters stand the protections described here remain in place.

What About Labor Law 241(6) and Section 200?

They are the companion claims, and they cover ground Section 240 does not. Most serious construction cases plead all three.

Section 241(6) imposes a nondelegable duty on owners and contractors to comply with the Industrial Code at 12 NYCRR Part 23. A claim requires the violation of a specific and concrete regulation rather than a general safety exhortation, and unlike Section 240, comparative fault does apply. It is the vehicle for trench, debris, equipment guarding, hoisting, and many other job site hazards.

Section 200 codifies the common-law duty to provide a safe place to work. Liability generally requires that the owner or contractor actually supervised or controlled the means and methods of the work, or had notice of a dangerous premises condition. It is the broadest claim in theory and the hardest to prove against a hands-off owner.

How Long Do You Have to File a Scaffold Law Lawsuit?

Generally three years, but shorter deadlines run alongside it, and one of them arrives in thirty days.

• Thirty days: written notice of the injury to your employer under the Workers' Compensation Law.
• Two years: to file the workers' compensation claim.
• Three years: the Labor Law and negligence action against the owner and contractor under CPLR 214.
• Ninety days: a notice of claim under General Municipal Law Section 50-e where the property owner is the City, a public authority, a school district, or another public entity, which is common on school, transit, and infrastructure projects.
• Two years: a wrongful death claim under EPTL 5-4.1, measured from the date of death.

Three years is the outside limit, not a plan. Scaffolds come down, ladders and lifts go back to the rental company, sites are completed, and the crew that saw the accident moves to the next job.

How Do Our New York Construction Accident Attorneys Handle Scaffold Law Cases?

We build these files toward an early motion on liability, because that is the leverage the statute provides and it is lost if the evidence is not secured.

• Immediate preservation: written demands to preserve the scaffold, ladder, lift, harness, anchor, or hoist involved, along with site photographs, before equipment is returned or the job is finished.
• Entity investigation: identifying the record owner, the general contractor, the construction manager, every subcontractor, and the equipment suppliers, and obtaining the contracts and insurance certificates that allocate responsibility.
• Compensation coordination: confirming the compensation claim is properly filed and benefits continue while the third-party case proceeds.
• Deadline protection: a notice of claim where a public entity owns the property.
• Pleading all three sections: Section 240(1), Section 241(6) with the specific Industrial Code provisions violated, and Section 200.
• Discovery: depositions of the foreman, the site safety manager, the superintendent, and co-workers, with document production on training, inspection, and equipment.
• Affirmative summary judgment: moving for judgment on liability under Section 240(1) where the violation is established, so the case proceeds on damages alone.
• Damages and lien resolution: life care planning and vocational analysis where the injury ends a trade career, and negotiation of the compensation lien at resolution.

Why Choose Kelner & Kelner for Your Scaffold Law Case?

Kelner & Kelner is a New York City trial firm that has handled catastrophic injury and wrongful death litigation for generations of families, in the Supreme Court in the five boroughs and the surrounding counties, in the federal courts, and on appeal.

Our attorneys have written and lectured on New York trial practice for the state and city bar associations, and appear regularly in the courts where Labor Law cases are decided. Where a fall ends a worker's ability to do the only trade they have ever worked, the case overlaps with our New York catastrophic injury practice. Cases are handled on a contingency fee, which means no legal fee unless there is a recovery. Consultations are free and confidential.

Talk to a New York Construction Accident Attorney

Workers' compensation is not the end of what you are owed, and the Scaffold Law gives New York construction workers protection that exists nowhere else in the country. If you were hurt in a fall or by a falling object on a New York job site, let our construction accident attorneys review what happened and tell you honestly what we see.