New York Labor Law §240(1), commonly known as the scaffold law, provides “all contractors and owners and their agents,…shall furnish or erect or cause to be furnished or erected for the performance of such labor, scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings, hangars, 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.” A violation of the statute has been found to impose absolute liability upon owners, contractors and their agents.
Historically, Labor Law §240(1) has applied to situations in which a worker falls or where something falls upon a worker, or as the statute puts it, to harm directly flowing from the application of the force of gravity to an object or person. With that in mind, New York courts have consistently refused to extend the absolute liability imposed by Labor Law §240(1) to owners and general contractors in trench collapse cases. In a typical trench collapse case a worker is situated within a below grade level trench which is improperly braced and the said materials which form the walls of the trench collapse in and onto the workers.
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