Did New York Labor Law 240(1) Cover Rhinos Falling off Fences?

What Do You Think?

New York’s Labor Law § 240(1) is designed, in part, to protect workers from falling objects. A recent case addresses whether a pneumatic tool falling off a fence and injuring a worker falls under 240(1).

The worker was using a Rhino to install the fence. Fortunately, the Rhino in this case was not a near-sighted but highly dangerous animal with a great sense of smell and a tendency to charge, but rather a device for driving in fence posts. The Rhino is a pneumatic tool that runs on an air compressor. You put it on top of a fence pole via the tool’s sleeve and it essentially jack-hammers the pole into the ground.

The Rhino, which weighed between 55 and 80 pounds, was sitting on top of a post when it unexpectedly shot upward and then fell down striking the worker on the head.

The worker claimed that the tool’s safety device, namely, the sleeve designed to keep the tool on the pole, failed to keep the Rhino in position until it could safely be removed after the post was set in the ground. The employee argued that this established a violation of Labor Law § 240(1).

New York Labor Law § 240(1) provides that:

All contractors and owners and their agents, . . . 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. [emphasis added].

The employer asked the court to throw out the case, contending that the above provision did not apply under the circumstances.

Was § 240(1) applicable to the worker’s injury?

A. Yes. The tool fell because it was not properly secured.

B. No. The statute applies when the main cause of the falling is the force of gravity.

If you selected B, you agreed with the court in D’Arrigo v. Long Island Concrete, Inc., No. 519403/2019. (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 01/26/25), which held that the statute did not apply to the tool.

The court explained that the statute is designed to shield an injured worker from harm directly flowing from the application of gravity to an object or person. The statute does not cover accidents merely tangentially related to the effects of gravity. 

“Rather, gravity must be a direct factor in the accident as when a worker falls from a height or is struck by a falling object,” the court wrote. 

Further, the accident was not attributable to a foreseeable elevation-related risk presented by the work. “[F]alling object situations covered by Labor Law § 240 (1) involve gravity-related perils which are obvious,” the court wrote.

Finally, the court pointed out that the Rhino was designed to slide up and down and pound the post into position. Securing it, therefore, would have defeated its purpose.

The court dismissed the worker’s claim.

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