Personal Injury Lawyers in New York

Scaffold Law and Construction Site Accident Kings County and other New York Counties

In New York State there is a scaffold law that protects workers at construction sites. The purpose of the scaffold law is to require building owners and general contractors to provide workers with proper scaffolds, hoists, harnesses and other appropriate worksite safety equipment. If a construction site worker is injured because the owner or contractor failed to provide the safety equipment then the owner or contractor is responsible for harm and economic damages suffered by a worker.

Construction work is inherently dangerous. And high elevation work, particularly when working on a scaffold, and ladder or roof, a moments lapse can result in death or serious injury, unless construction workers are supplied with adequate safety equipment. The on the job death rate for construction workers is 15 per 100,000 employees, almost triple the death rate in government jobs. New York State has virtually the safest constrction injury prevention rate in the nation thanks in large part to the scaffold law. The scaffold law is found in section 240 of the New York state labor law and it is over 100 years old. The scaffold law applies only to construction work at elevated heights.

By making the big money interests responsible for worksite safety, the scaffold law effectively ensures that owners and general contractors will select only subcontractors adequately budget to safety, have good safety records, and who don't cut safety corners to make extra money at the expense of construction workers safety.However, even in the presence of the scaffold law, certain owners of buildings and certain type of general contractors choose to profits and money making over worker safety. Each year our firm is retained by constuction workers and their families because safety equipped was not provided at the construction site and falls and severe injuries were suffered because of the owners' and general contractors' choice to not provide safety equipment and procedure.

Construction workers injured on the job often sustained devastating economic loss in the form of lost wages and lifetime severe impairment of an ability to earn a living. Construction worker's family is very much affected because the injuries impact on the worker's ability to take part in family activities that were characteristic before the injury at the construction site. If You have been involved in a construction site accident, please contact the Law Offices of Silberstein, Awad & Miklos, serving clients in Nassau and Suffolk Counties and Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens.

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