N.Y. Employers' Liability Law § 2: Employers' liability for injuries

§ 2. Employers' liability for injuries. When personal injury is caused

to an employee who is himself in the exercise of due care and diligence

at the time:

1. By reason of any defect in the condition of the ways, works,

machinery, or plant, connected with or used in the business of the

employer which arose from or had not been discovered or remedied owing

to the negligence of the employer or of any person in the service of the

employer and intrusted by him with the duty of seeing that the ways,

works, machinery, or plant, were in proper condition;

2. By reason of the negligence of any person in the service of the

employer intrusted with any superintendence or by reason of the

negligence of any person intrusted with authority to direct, control or

command any employee in the performance of the duty of such employee,

the employee, or in case the injury results in death, the executor or

administrator of a deceased employee who has left him surviving a

husband, wife or next of kin, shall have the same right of compensation

and remedies against the employer as if the employee had not been an

employee of nor in the service of the employer nor engaged in his work.

The provisions of law relating to actions for causing death by

negligence, so far as the same are consistent with this act, shall apply

to an action brought by an executor or administrator of a deceased

employee, suing under the provisions of this article. If an employer

enters into a contract, written or verbal, with an independent

contractor to do part of such employer's work, or if such contractor

enters into a contract with a subcontractor to do all or any part of the

work comprised in such contractor's contract with the employer, such

contract or subcontract shall not bar the liability of the employer for

the injuries to the employees of such contractor or subcontractor,

caused by any defect in the condition of the ways, works, machinery, or

plant, if they are the property of the employer or are furnished by him,

and if such defect arose, or had not been discovered or remedied,

through the negligence of the employer, or of some person intrusted by

him with the duty of seeing that they were in proper condition.