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The result has been an ever growing body of case law that lacks consistency and increasingly calls into question whether the purported intent of §240 to protect workers from the hazards of elevation related risks and promote responsibility for safety can really be advanced by the statute (footnote and citations omitted).” Ehrlich & Sands, “Once Again Trying to Make Sense of Labor Law §240,” N.Y.L.J. 1 Ongoing Legal Conundrumįive years hence, in January 2018, the same sentiments of frustration and/or confusion were expressed in an article titled “Once Again Trying to Make Sense of Labor Law §240.” As set forth by the authors: “Clearly, since the statute was enacted over a hundred years ago (…), courts at all levels have struggled, and frequently failed, to apply the law coherently.

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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. So that’s why I think we need a legislative fix…to provide clarity and to say that we’re going to impose liability the same way that every other state does.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. We’re only looking to change the absolute liability portion of the law, which actually isn’t even written into the law. “We’re not looking to change any of the safety provisions in the law. “We’re not looking to repeal the law,” Stebbins said.

With this in mind, the coalition’s letter urges Cuomo to add Scaffold Law reform to the 2021 executive budget and amend the absolute liability standard into what the coalition calls “a more equitable and modern comparative negligence standard.” “If your client is 100% guilty all the time, it’s nearly impossible to cage the risk.” “Nobody wants to write it, because it’s nearly impossible to insure, right?” he said. They will no longer write construction policies.” “More and more insurers have left New York entirely. “If you look over the past few years, it’s gotten demonstrably worse,” he said. Stebbins said beyond the cost issue, a lack of available construction general liability insurance policies in New York has created challenges for small businesses in particular seeking this coverage. “We will review the letter, though this has been a nonstarter with the legislature,” the spokesperson told Insurance Journal in an email. However, a spokesperson for the New York State Division of the Budget, which assists the governor in preparing his executive budget proposal, did not seem optimistic about these latest calls for reform.

“New York is facing $20 billion of deficit, and here we have a fix that we can enact and it would save hundreds of millions of dollars for schools, save hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure, at precisely the time when we need that money,” Insurance Journal quoted Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York (LRANY), as saying.

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The letter claims the legal revision would “annually free up millions of dollars in state and municipal budgets, save hundreds of millions in infrastructure costs, and release an estimated two hundred million a year in education budgets across the state” at a time when New York is already weathering economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.