N.Y. Labor Law § 240: Scaffolding and other devices for use of employees

§ 240. Scaffolding and other devices for use of employees. 1. All

contractors and owners and their agents, except owners of one and

two-family dwellings who contract for but do not direct or control the

work, in the erection, demolition, repairing, altering, painting,

cleaning or pointing of a building or structure shall furnish or erect,

or cause to be furnished or erected for the performance of such labor,

scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys,

braces, irons, ropes, and other devices which shall be so constructed,

placed and operated as to give proper protection to a person so

employed.

No liability pursuant to this subdivision for the failure to provide

protection to a person so employed shall be imposed on professional

engineers as provided for in article one hundred forty-five of the

education law, architects as provided for in article one hundred

forty-seven of such law or landscape architects as provided for in

article one hundred forty-eight of such law who do not direct or control

the work for activities other than planning and design. This exception

shall not diminish or extinguish any liability of professional engineers

or architects or landscape architects arising under the common law or

any other provision of law.

2. Scaffolding or staging more than twenty feet from the ground or

floor, swung or suspended from an overhead support or erected with

stationary supports, except scaffolding wholly within the interior of a

building and covering the entire floor space of any room therein, shall

have a safety rail of suitable material properly attached, bolted,

braced or otherwise secured, rising at least thirty-four inches above

the floor or main portions of such scaffolding or staging and extending

along the entire length of the outside and the ends thereof, with only

such openings as may be necessary for the delivery of materials. Such

scaffolding or staging shall be so fastened as to prevent it from

swaying from the building or structure.

3. All scaffolding shall be so constructed as to bear four times the

maximum weight required to be dependent therefrom or placed thereon when

in use.