THE NEW YORK LABOR LAW: AN OVERVIEW

Purpose: For over 100 years, New York has recognized the unique hazards faced by workers engaged in construction and certain other forms of manual labor. To provide "adequate protection to workmen" engaged in these dangerous occupations, New York has enacted several laws intended to prevent accidents on the work site. These laws are sometime referred to as the "safe place to work statutes." Among the most notable are Sections 240 and 241 of New York's Labor Law. These statutes have been held to impose an absolute, non-delegable duty on all owners, their contractors and agents. This means that owners of the property where accidents occur are absolutely liable to the injured worker, even if their only involvement is simply to allow the work to occur. The responsibility to comply with these safety rules is not dependant upon whether or not they control the workers' activities; it is simply a matter of whether their name is on the deed to the property where the accident occurs. Responsibility has been imposed even upon property owners who have given an easement, for instance, to a utility company under which the utility company can enter upon the property and perform work at anytime without further permission from the owner. Even owners who have leased the entire property to a tenant who agrees to undertake all responsibility for the property will still be liable for the tenant's failure to provide workers on the property with appropriate safety devices, since the statute is not based upon control over the work but ownership of the property.

Eligibility to collect Workers' Compensation is not affected by a claim brought against an owner under these statutes. A worker is able to collect Workers' Compensation benefits from his/her employer and still bring a personal injury claim against the owner of the property or any of the owner's contractors or agents. There is no requirement that the worker choose between worker's compensation benefits or a personal injury lawsuit. Thus, a handyman who falls while cleaning snow from the roof of a Troy, New York, building can collect his workers' compensation benefits and still recover the full extent of his damages from the owners of the property.

Protects not just New York workers but anyone from another state or country: The law applies to all workers who are injured in accidents which occur within the geographical borders of New York, even if the worker or his employer are residents of another state. This means that a Massachusetts roofer who falls from a building he is working on in Newburgh, New York, may collect his Massachusetts compensation benefits and still bring a claim against the owner of the building.

Parties responsible: all owners, contractors and agents: Anyone who has an ownership right (joint or co-tenants, lessee, easements holders, licensees, contract vendees, etc.) must comply with these statutes. The statutes also requires any party who initiates the work, such as a tenant who remodels a leasehold, or a grantee of an easement who enters property to repair a broken water main, to comply with the requirements of these laws. Contractors include generals contractors, subcontractors, sole proprietors, independents, or others who have been assigned, or who have taken on, the obligation to perform the work even if they delegated it to another before the injury occurred. The only exceptions are owners of 1-2 family residences, and architects and engineers who do not direct or control the work.

Non-delegable/vicarious liability: Before these statutes were enacted, New York, like many other states, would allow an owner or contractor to avoid liability if they delegated the responsibility, by contract or otherwise, to another and no longer controlled the work giving rise to the injury. Since it was the plaintiff's own employer who generally controlled the injury-producing activity, the plaintiff was left without any remedy except for his/her workers' compensation benefits. Sections 240 and 241 were enacted to prevent this avoidance of liability, thereby creating a non-delegable duty to comply with these statutes. No longer can the defense of "lack of control" defeat liability no matter what form the argument takes (i.e., lack of: expertise, knowledge of the work or unsafe condition, financial or geographical inability). The duty imposed by these statutes results in vicarious liability upon all owners and their contractors.

Absolute duty: Because these statutes impose a statutory obligation upon defendants, the duty to comply cannot be avoided or diminished by pointing to the worker's own negligence or culpable conduct. Comparative negligence is not a defense no matter how much at fault the worker is. For example, if an owner contracted directly with a painter to paint a water tower and the painter, who has no employees, does all the work himself, falls from his own ladder when it breaks while he is standing on it, the owner of the property will still be responsible for failing to provide an adequate ladder. This will still be true even when the contract required the painter to comply with the Labor Law and to indemnify the owner for any damages caused by the plaintiff's actions. The owner is absolutely liable to the worker and cannot use the worker's own fault or the contract to defeat, or even diminish, the recovery to which the worker is entitled.

Summary Judgment decisions are the norm: Sections 240 and 241 are strict liability statutes. All the worker need show is that the statute was violated, and that the violation was a substantial factor in causing injury to the worker. Fault or negligence of the defendant is not an element. Therefore, the vast majority of these claims never reach trial and are resolved upon motion. As long as the worker can show the statute was violated, and the violation caused harm, the worker will be granted summary judgment, even if the worker is the only one with first hand knowledge of the facts. This is not a fault basis law. It is a law that requires the owner and their contractors to compensate the worker when an injury occurs, whether they are at fault or not in causing the accident.

Unwitnessed Accidents

In general, motions for summary judgment should not be granted when the movant is in sole possession of the critical facts. However, this principal does not usually apply to statutory causes of action such as Labor Law §240(1). Even when the accident is unwitnessed, denial of the summary judgment motion is proper only when the defendant can legitimately place the plaintiff's credibility in issue on a necessary element of fact. Groves v. Land's End, 80 N.Y.2d 978. Landry v. DiSarro, 149 A.D.2d 859. In order to defeat the motion, the defendant must produce some facts that will support such a finding. Another method of placing the plaintiff's credibility at issue is to demonstrate that the plaintiff has given different versions of the accident (i.e., his report to the Workers' Compensation Board, statement given to the police or OSHA, his doctor or at a hospital, have not been consistent, or there are inconsistencies among descriptions in the complaint, bill of particulars, EBT, or an affidavit supporting the summary judgment motion).

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