In an article I wrote on New York’s “Scaffold Law” (Labor Law §240(1)), published in January 2013, I noted “there has been a myriad of cases seeking to interpret and clarify the succinctly worded first paragraph of this statute. The trial and appellate courts have created a body of law that is constantly evolving in order to reconcile the often inconsistent decisions in an attempt to clarify the legislative intent by their differing definitions and the application thereof.”

I concluded the article by stating that “Labor Law §240(1) has been and continues to be a statute that will yield differences of opinions between the courts at all levels regarding the nature of a worker’s tasks that fall within the statute: the devices, if any, to be provided and used to protect the worker; the nature and degree of the elevation and height differentials, vis-a-vis the worker and the distance he or she falls or that which an object falls causing injury to the worker… *** Baring further clarity of the statute by legislative amendment, the courts will continue to confront the highly elusive goal of defining with precision the statutory terms of the ever evolving Scaffold Law.” Heymann, New York’s Scaffold Law and the Evolution of Elevation, NYS Bar Journal, January 2013, Vol. 85, No. 1

Ongoing Legal Conundrum

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