Today we’re going to be talking about a section of the law called Labor Law 200 and many of you may be familiar, especially lawyers or people that are involved in the real estate business in New York, that’s Labor Law 240 Subscection (1). It’s well known as the Scaffold Law. And basically it was a law that was put in place many, many years ago when they realize that when people are involved in height-related accidents, falls, and now these days also falling objects that workers can get really, really badly hurt and that the available remedies were not really sufficient. So they passed that law and that’s called Labor Law 240 Sub one. And like I said, a lot of people have heard about the Scaffold Law because there’s a lot of discussion from both ends as to how the law exists now, whether it should be changed. So it’s a very, very hot topic.
There’s another section of the labor law called Section 241(6). Section 241(6) regards industrial code violations. So there’s a whole list of industrial codes in New York state that ensure that or help to ensure that workers stay safe while they’re working. And that industrial code addresses all sorts of types of situations at the workplace. For example, it addresses tripping hazards, it addresses electrical hazards, it addresses protective eyewear, protective clothing. So there are specific statutes, and if you violate one of these codes, one of these industrial codes, you will be found to have violated section 241(6) of the labor law.
Now, there are some significant differences between labor law 240(1), the scaffold law and 241(6), the industrial code violation sections. And one of the biggest is that if you have a 240(1) case, let’s say you have a fall from a ladder or a fall from a defective scaffold or an object falls on you, your own negligence, your own fault is not taking into account. You could be doing something completely wrong. And unless it’s a 100% your fault, unless you are the sole cause of this accident and it has nothing to do with any defective equipment, you are not held liable at all. So the finding is what we call strict liability. It would find that in a 240(1) case, if there is a finding, it is full liability. There is no what we call comparative negligence. It’s not reduced by the worker’s own negligence unlike most other cases.
Labor law 241(6) is different. That does take into account comparative negligence. So while there could be an industrial code violation regarding a tripping hazard or electrical hazard or eyewear, it also addresses the worker’s own negligence. So if the worker did something that also caused the accident, well, that’s going to be taken into account and that’s going to reduce his award by whatever percentage of negligence he was or she was. So that’s 241(6). So now this is kind of the less famous little brother of the other two statutes, 240(1) and 241(6), Labor Law 200. And Labor Law 200 really came out of case law. There was all sorts of case law that said that you need to protect workers and make sure that the workplace is safe for workers so that owners and general contractors had a duty to keep the workplace safe. At some point, that case law was then translated into black letter law. So now it’s a statutory law that you must provide a safe workplace for your workers if you are an owner or you are a general contractor.
Understanding the Two Types of Labor Law 200 Cases
The thing that I think gets most people confused about Labor Law 200 is that there are two types of Labor Law 200 cases. So one of the types of Labor Law 200 cases is regarding a dangerous condition on the premises. And the other one regards improper means and methods at the premises. So those are two different types of things and it’s very important that you know the difference between the two because the standard to prove those cases is different. And what I mean is when you make an argument that there is a violation of Labor Law 200 because the means and methods were improper or unsafe or dangerous, you need to show that whoever you’re trying to blame had direction and control over your work, okay? Because it’s means and methods, it’s how the work was performed. So if a party has no control, so let’s say you have an owner that’s in absentia, okay? The owner’s not there, there’s a GC on the property, and let’s say there’s a subcontractor on the property, if you sue the owner in that case, you will not have a successful case because if the owner’s not on the property at all, well, then clearly he’s not directing and controlling the work. It is different though for a dangerous condition on the premises. There, you don’t need to show direction and control. All you need to show is that they either caused or created the dangerous condition or that they knew or should have known about the dangerous condition.
So in the case where the owner may not be responsible because he’s not directing the means and methods, he may be responsible because the owner may have the responsibility to have known about the condition on the premises. If you’re an owner of your own premises, you have to do reasonable inspections. You can’t just get away with saying, I’m not directing controlling the work. So a 200 case for an unreasonable condition only requires at a minimum constructive notice, which is just you should have known that there was a dangerous condition on the premises.
Workers’ Compensation and Its Interplay with Labor Laws
How does this all play with workers’ compensation? Because I’m sure everybody here is familiar with workers’ compensation. And workers’ compensation was passed in New York to make sure that workers would not have to wait forever and litigate forever to get their medical bills paid for, to get their lost earnings when they were injured in an accident. So when you are injured in an accident, your employer has workers’ compensation insurance, and that compensation insurance will pay for your what we call special damages, your out-of-pocket for your medicals and your lost earnings. In exchange for the fact that you don’t have to do any sort of lawsuit to get your workers benefits, you can’t sue your employer. That was the deal that got cut. So you cannot sue your employer for the benefit of any insurance coverage. You are only stuck with a workers’ compensation claim with respect to your employer.
So that can be problematic in certain cases and especially in 200 cases because there is a lot of interplay between workers’ compensation and section 200 of the labor law. Section 200 of the labor law, like I said, you have means and methods and you have dangerous conditions on the premises and either of those can become difficult to prove because of workers’ compensation. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say in a means and methods case, you work for the general contractor at the site. The owner is nowhere to be found at the site and your boss gave you some defective equipment to work with so that the means and methods were unsafe. You don’t have a third-party case, you only have a workers’ compensation case because the only person in that situation that you could sue Labor Law 200 for means and methods would be your boss. The owner’s not there and the owner would need to direct and control the work. So you would only be stuck in that situation with a workers’ compensation thing. If it’s the 200 claim regarding an unreasonably safe condition, you still may have a claim against the owner as long as the owner should have known about the dangerous condition. You would still be able to get workers’ compensation from your boss, which would be the contractor, but you also would potentially have a lawsuit against the owner of the premises in the situation where there was a dangerous condition.
Now it gets even more complicated because we were talking about direction and control and how you need to prove that in a case where there is improper means and methods for the work that’s being performed. And so how does one go about proving direction and control? Well, you’re going to say, he told me to do this. He told me to do that. They told me to do this. They told me to pick up this. The problem with that is if there’s too much direction and control, let’s say it’s not from your employer, you’re working for the subcontractor, okay? But the contractor is telling you everything to do, you may be considered a borrowed employee of the contractor even though you don’t get your check from that general contractor. Even though you worked for the subcontractor, they can come in and say, listen, we directed and controlled the work, we were telling you what to do, you were our de facto employee at the time that the accident happened. And it is a way to defend the case.
They cannot do the same thing with where you have an unreasonable condition because you don’t need direction and control in that situation. You only need constructive notice. So they will, in a situation where you raise Section 200 quite often, try to say workers’ compensation bars, it because we borrowed your employee because we were, and you admit we were directing and controlling. And so that direct and control is proof that it was a borrowed employee. So it’s a very, very fine line to get that right. So that’s certainly one of the areas, the interplay of workers’ compensation with labor law.
Navigating Exemptions in Labor Law
The other thing is that there are a lot of different various exemptions regarding the labor law. One of those exemptions is one and two family homes. So what the law didn’t want to unduly hurt people that are just single-family homeowners or have two … They wanted this law to apply to the bigger businesses and the bigger corporations and the commercial premises. So they created this exemption. So the thing is though, the exemption would apply to Labor Law section 240(1). So if you fall at someone’s property, it’s a single family, it’s likely not a 240(1) case. It’s also not going to be a 241(6) case. It’s also likely not going to be a Labor Law 200 case with respect to means and methods. However, you could have a successful 200 case. There is no exemption for 200 for the dangerous condition on the premises. So if you’re a single family or two family homeowner, you can still be on the hook for a Labor Law 200 case if you knew or you should have known about the dangerous condition on the premises. And there is no exemption.
Pleading Both Prongs of Labor Law 200
The next is it’s kind of important as a practice tip if you’re a lawyer, you’re listening to this, Labor Law 200, it’s smart to plead both prongs of it, plead the dangerous condition, plead the unsafe means and methods both because you never know exactly what a judge or court is going to latch onto and think, you know what? I’m not sure which type of 200, I think it’s this. You may think it’s the dangerous condition 200. The judge may think it’s the means and method. So you should always have both in, and the judge will determine if both apply, if one applies or if none apply. So that’s one thing. And the other thing is that there’s also interplay between section 240(1), section 241(6) and section 200 of the labor law. They’re not mutually exclusive. You can plead them all. You can have a 200 labor law violation and a labor law 241(6) violation at the same time.
For example, tripping hazard cases. Well, it’s potentially a dangerous condition, all right? It could be unsafe means and methods depending on how that tripping hazard was created. And it is also a violation of the industrial code because the adjusted code addresses tripping hazards on the site. You could even have a 200 claim, a 241(6) claim and a 240(1) claim at the same time. And in fact, it happens quite a bit. I’m going to give you some real-life examples from our firm as to those types of situations where all three have applied. So recently, we had a case where a gentleman was a plumber. He was working out of Long Island at a condo project for the Ritz-Carlton and the place had not been built out completely. The windows had not been put in yet. The walls really weren’t up. So there were floors, but there were exposed to the element and there were holes in the various floors for the pipes. They’re called core holes. And what was happening because it was an unprotected building, is that the water was leaking through these core holes and our guy was doing work on a ladder where the water had accumulated and iced up on the rungs of the ladder and then he fell off of that ladder and sustained significant injuries as a result of that fall. And that was a section 240(1) case.
We moved for summary judgment and one on 240(1) because it was a height-related injury and the ladder was not sufficient for the work that was being performed. It was a violation of 240(1) because it was a tripping hazard. You have a overly slippery surface when you have an icy rung and that is considered a tripping hazard. So it was a violation of the industrial code. And it was also a dangerous condition on the premises. They were not addressing the ice that was accumulating all over the premises. They didn’t have enough heaters. They were not blocking things out, they weren’t using tar. There were a number of various things and the court ruled in our favor that they violated all three sections of the labor law and the case did subsequently settle for a seven-figure sum. So that’s one. We’ve had many, many cases. But here’s another case that I thought would be relevant.
We had a gentleman who was working on a New York City sewer project and he was working for the general contractor. And one of his co-workers was pulling a plate out of the sewer trench. The plates separate the work so the whole trunk doesn’t collapse while they’re working. But once they finish the section, they backfill the section and then they go to the next section. And they use these plates as they work in the very section. So the excavator was pulling this plate out and the worker was not aware that there was a wire running across the street. The arm of the excavator hit that wire. That wire was connected to a utility pole. Utility pole fell, landed on my guy who had catastrophic injuries. Again, we moved for summary judgment on section 240(1) on section 241(6) and Labor Law 200. And once again, they were all granted why? Well, the falling of the utility pole, it was a height related risk. The utility pole is 30 feet in the air and landed on the guy. And based on the weight and the height of that pole, that made it a falling object case and it fell within the labor law 240(1).
It was also a violation of the industrial code because you need to address the issue of overhead wires and electrical hazards when you’re doing work. Clearly, they did not. So they violated 241(6) as well. And because of the fact that they had not put any flags or addressed the wire itself, there was a unreasonably unsafe condition on the premises and that was this overhanging wire in close proximity to the arm of the excavator. So it was also considered a violation of section 200 of the labor law.
The Importance of Legal Representation in Labor Law Cases
Can you do this without a lawyer? Well, maybe. There are some cases in the personal injury world that you could do without a lawyer. I don’t believe that anyone should try to go, though, there are any type of personal injury case. But if there was one type of case that I would say you absolutely must hire a lawyer, it is a labor law case. They’re super complex. As you can see, there are many, many different sections, many different statutes. It’s very nuanced. There’s workers’ compensation issues, there are insurance coverage issues. This is complex stuff. And the litigation goes on, typically for years. There are often multiple parties, fights between the parties. It’s usually a very, very lengthy process. Now we’ve had some great success. That last case that I told you about, that case actually settled for $36 million, and at the time, it was the highest settlement in New York.
I think it’s been eclipsed since that time. Records are made to be broken and hopefully, I’ll get another shot. We have been doing this for a long time. If you want to check out our firm, we’ve been doing construction cases for 20, 25 years. Check out our firm, see our results at edelsteinlaw.com.