Here's why New Yorkers are fired up over scaffolding liability

Insurance companies and construction businesses are in open war with trial lawyers and labor unions over New Yorks millennia-old Scaffold Law, which institutes absolute liability on contractors if an employee is injured or killed on the job.

By Joseph Jaafari | Updated on September 17, 2014

Insurance companies and construction businesses are in open war with trial lawyers and labor unions over New York’s 129-year-old “Scaffold Law,” which institutes absolute liability on contractors if an employee is injured or killed on the job.

The law, put in place in 1885, was drafted to protect construction workers in high-elevation situations (at the time the tallest skyscraper in New York City was a 281-foot spire at Wall Street’s Trinity Church), and made contractors liable in gravity-related accidents, such as falling from a platform.

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